Timeless
by Solstice Muse
Summary: Dumbledore kept him exactly where he was supposed to be all his life.When Ron turned 18 Dumbledore's spell had run its course.Now he learns to deal with a very unique problem...Time Epilepsy.COMPLETE
1. Introduction

_**Disclaimer - I am borrowing characters from the world of Harry Potter and plot devices from The Time Traveler's Wife. I am neither JK Rowling nor Audrey Niffenegger, oh for that much talent!**_

**Timeless**

**Dedicated to Beth (Rupertlovesme) who loves it when I make her cry almost as much as she loves Ron**

_"You are still a whisper on my lips_

_A feeling at my fingertips_

_That's pulling at my skin_

_You leave me when I'm at my worst_

_Feeling as if I've been cursed_

_Bitter cold within_

_Days go by and still I think of you_

_Days when I couldn't live my life without you_

_Without you..."_

_Dirty Vegas_

**Introduction**

_March 6th 1998. Ron and Hermione are 18._

"No I've got it Hermione, I swear."

"You haven't got it though have you? If you had it you wouldn't be searching so frantically for it now."

HERMIONE: Merlin he could be so stubborn!

"I had it in my hand just a minute ago, it's right here...somewhere."

I watched Ron as he scowled at his own jacket, shaking it out furiously and patting down the sleeves and pockets yet again, with that look of determined frustration on his face. His ears were going pink and he huffed. We were just leaving our flat to go and visit Harry, Neville, Seamusand the twins in Diagon Alley when he realised that he didn't have his wand on him. We had been standing on the kerbside for five minutes searching for it. He was right though, he had it just a moment ago, I saw him put it in his jacket pocket myself just before he rushed to the toilet to be sick and, inexplicably, get naked.

I blame the drinking myself. Well ok, not just the drinking, I blame the older brother who ought to have known better for the drinking. Charlie had just come back from a long stint in Hungry and wanted to take his siblings for a night on the town. Ron had staggered home in a right state, he was naked then too, I hope this isn't going to become a habit. Don't get me wrong, I _love_ naked Ron, I'd just prefer him to be naked in context that's all.

"Maybe it fell out of your pocket when you passed out in the bathroom," I ventured.

"I had it, I had it when I got dressed, it was still in my pocket," he hissed.

Oh great, just what I needed, Ron in a foul mood before the day's even begun.

I kept reminding myself that he wasn't cross with me, he was still confused from his disorientating blackout striptease just now. When I had walked in on him he looked at me as if I'd just splinched myself and began to ramble something about him having been outside and me being pregnant.

Merlin that _would_ be a nightmare!

"I had it Hermione, I had it all the way down the stairs, it disappeared when I got outside I'm telling you."

He finished his mini rant and saw that I wasn't taking his mood to heart and let out a sigh.

"Look I'm sorry but this isn't anything to do with my hangover, I know you think I've just put it down somewhere and forgotten it but I know I had it babe, I _know_ I did."

Babe. It still makes me blush when he says it. It's quite a new term of endearment but he manages to slip one in every now and then like it's no big deal but I've noticed that he tends to use it when losing an argument or trying to win me over with the Weasley charm.

"I'm not calling you a liar Ron, you know I'm not, but you were _really_ confused when you woke up you have to admit that," I paused long enough for him to shrug, not convinced at all that I could be right, "All I'm saying is that it wouldn't hurt to go and take another look inside, retrace your steps maybe?"

He was about to respond when he was interrupted by a giggle. We both looked down at the source of this sound to see a little red-haired child with a dirty face and a huge grin. She was wearing a t-shirt that almost dragged along the floor and was bare foot. She had enormous brown eyes and her hands were outstretched and presenting Ron with his missing wand.

"Oh thank you!" he gasped with relief, "Where'd you find it?"

Ron took the wand from the beaming little girl and tucked it securely in the back pocket of his jeans.

"It rolled down the stairs and floated along the gutter so I picked it up."

The child looked so overjoyed to be speaking to Ron that I wondered if they were related in some way, there was actually a resemblance.

"Well thank you again," Ron smiled as he squatted down and shook the little girl's hand, "that ol' stick is very important to me."

Again the girl giggled and smiled, reluctantly letting go of Ron's hand I noticed, before speaking in a theatrical whisper.

"It's a wand."

Ron's eyebrows shot up and disappeared into his hair, he looked up at me briefly before glancing up and down the street.

"You're a little witch aren't you?"

The girl nodded and I squatted down beside Ron so we were all at eye level. I felt that maternal feeling I always used to get whenever I was talking to Neville in one of his despondent moods.

"Where are your mummy and daddy, are you lost?" I asked in my most non-threatening voice.

"Mummy's at home waiting for me, I'll go back in a minute," she said without worry, "and daddy's in the hospital, he's not very well."

I tried not to look sorry for the brave little thing, she seemed so happy right now.

"Oh that's a shame," Ron frowned as he rubbed the girl's arm in a comforting manner, "I'm sure he's getting better though."

The little girl fixed Ron with a fiercely confident stare; her brown eyes alight with joy.

"You promise?"

Ron was slightly startled by that and looked at me, non-verbally pleading for instructions on how to deal with such a question."

"Well he can't but we're both sure everything will be fine. The doctors at St Mungo's are brilliant."

"Yeah," Ron nodded, "they made my dad better when he wasn't well."

The little girl seemed to shake with contained excitement.

"From the snake!"

Ron blinked, his jaw hanging open briefly before leaning in and staring at the little girl closely.

"Do I know you?"

The little girl suddenly threw her arms around Ron and hugged him as tightly as she could.

"Remember I made you promise," she whispered into his ear before letting him go and running off down the street, "I'm going home now, bye!"

Ron looked at me, dumbfounded, before we both set off after the little girl who had turned the first corner not far away but when we reached the corner ourselves she was nowhere to be seen.

"Do you think she's alright?" I asked, biting my bottom lip in that way I do that prevents me from wearing lipstick.

"I guess so," Ron said, still scanning the street for any trace of her, "she must live nearby if she's wandering around barefoot mustn't she?"

We walked back to our apparition point inside the vandalised telephone box on the corner.

"Is she a second cousin of yours or something?" I speculated, as it was pretty clear Ron seemed to semi-recognise her.

"I don't know of anybody in the family being in St Mungo's at the moment. Maybe the twins'll have heard something. Speaking of them, come on we're late."

RON: I had been surprised that Hermione hadn't nagged me more over the couple of blackouts I'd had since my birthday, it really was unlike her as she does love to nag, but then I saw her master plan in action when we arrived at Diagon Alley. She just casually happened to casually mention it in the most un-deliberate casual way to Fred, George and Harry in the hope that one of them would not-so-casually threaten to grass me up to my mother and have me ordered to see a medi wizard immediately.

It had worked to.

"Hello my friend here needs to see someone about his head please," Harry said with his best chocolate frog card smile as we reached the sullen looking receptionist at the accident and emergency desk in St Mungo's

"What's wrong with it?" she said while staring at me and filing my image away for future reference as a time waster.

She was as thin as a broom handle and had thick black rimmed glasses in the shape of cat's eyes, a beak-like nose and straggly brown hair half-heartedly gathered into a loose bun at the back of her head.

"Well we don't know that, that's why we need to see a medi wizard or witch if you wouldn't mind," Harry said, determined that he was being charming even though the woman was reacting to him as if he had stepped in a dog turd and now expected her to remove it from his shoe for him.

Again the receptionist looked me over with her cynical gaze. I was feeling fine and I really didn't want to put up with all this crap just to be told I had a hangover. I'd just turned eighteen for crying out loud, what did everyone expect?

"Come on mate, I told you it's nothing," I said as I tugged at Harry's arm and took a step towards the exit.

Harry grabbed me by the sleeve and yanked me back over to the desk, well practically into the desk actually, and his grin remained but seemed somewhat tense now.

"Is there any way we could get my friend checked out do you think?"

The woman pulled a face that looked like a greyhound chewing a bee.

"Well maybe I could get him seen right away by someone if there was actually something, y'know...oh what's the word? That's it, _wrong_ with him!"

Harry's grin was gone now and he leaned forward and growled under his breath while I folded my arms and silently cursed Hermione and her big bloody mouth.

"My friend is having blackouts and...well it's causing other strange behaviour and I'd really appreciate if it you could drop the attitude and pick up your appointment book and tell us who's free and where to find them."

Again the scrawny receptionist eyeballed me and I turned my back on her with a shake of the head.

"You see sir the problem we're having is this, only a tiny little thing but still it's worth pointing out I feel, if you look at the sign above my head here you'll find that it does in fact say accident and emergency. Has your friend had an accident?"

I didn't hear Harry responding but I could've sworn that I saw steam coming out of his ears.

"No," the queen of sarcasm continued without emotion, "and would you call a couple of little headaches an emergency? Would you call it that sir? Because I don't really think that it is you know?"

I found myself trying not to laugh now, she was actually quite good at being difficult, it was entertaining because it was happening to Harry while he was annoying me.

"Listen..." Harry began, his voice straining not to yell.

"No sir I think you need to listen to me," she interrupted, "we have people waiting, people who are actually hurt and bleeding, if you care to look over there you'll see that Mr Block has a small shrub growing out of the top of his head at quite an alarming rate. I think that calls for a head specialist more than a perfectly healthy looking young man who seems to think he's absolutely fine and is being made to make a nuisance of himself by an over zealous friend with an unchecked ego."

I snorted and Harry glared at me, this was getting really hard not to laugh at now.

"Are you telling me," Harry snapped back at the receptionist, "that unless you can actually _see _the problem with your own, may I say unqualified, eyes then there isn't really a problem at all? Maybe you'd prefer it if I embedded an axe into my friend's head and then you would be convinced that he needs to see someone quite urgently."

"Well if you were to get your hands on an axe maybe you could put it to better use chopping down that small tree sprouting out of poor Mr Block's scalp."

I grabbed Harry and pulled him away from the desk while letting a little of my built-up laughter go, much to his annoyance.

"Look mate I feel fine, it's just a hangover, I bet it's one of those foreign shots Charlie bought me the other night, he kept saying hoogadaboogada every time I said the word breasts after he had his third."

Harry's stony facade crumpled on hearing this and he chuckled.

"Why were you saying breasts in the first place?"

"To make him say hoogadaboogada."

Harry shook his head and laughed. We turned to leave when I remembered my strange encounter with what must've been a distant relative that morning and went back over to the receptionist.

"Excuse me would you be able to tell me if there are any wizards called Weasley in the hospital at the moment?"

Harry joined me and frowned while the woman stared at me as if to warn me not to start with her.

"That's all I want from you, just to know that, and then I'll go away and I promise to take my friend with me."

This seemed to win her over immediately and she scanned her wand over a large scroll of parchment before looking up.

"There are no wizards called Weasley in this hospital and haven't been since a Mr Percy Weasley was admitted by his bothers for psychiatric analysis against his will."

I tried not to smirk at the twins' last attempt to torture Percy, my pompous brother who hasn't spoken to anybody in the family in years, while the receptionist looked back up at me with a huff and pushed her glasses back up her giant hook of a nose.

"Before that the same wizard was booked in for an emergency procedure to remove his head from his rectum but that turned out to be a hoax."

I nodded and amazed myself by keeping my face straight as I stepped back and turned to leave.

"Oh yeah of course it was, obvious hoax that, I mean why would he want to remove it? He likes it there."

Harry snorted so hard that snot almost shot out of his nose and we both staggered out of St Mungos's in hysterics.

We saw Hermione charging down Diagon Alley to meet us with that no nonsense look on her face and Harry took a step behind me slightly as she was almost upon us.

"Coward," I mumbled out of the corner of my mouth.

"What? She's your girlfriend."

"Well?" she said, folding her arms across her chest and her eyes wide.

"Like I said," I beamed my most convincing grin at her, it was easy actually, I just had to remember the look on the receptionist's face as we left, "it's just a hangover. They actually gave me a bollocking for time wasting, there was a bloke there with a tree growing out of his head."

Harry nodded over my shoulder, Hermione looked unconvinced.

"Hangover eh? So what tests did they do?"

"Pft, I don't know, I'm not a medi wizard am I? They just did tests, asked questions, asked me how many fingers they were holding up."

She took a step towards me, her hard exterior softening slightly but the look of suspicion still set in her eyes.

"If it happens again I'm telling your mother."

I kissed her on the end of her nose and gave her a hug.

"It won't."

* * *

_A/N This fic will be written from both Ron and Hermione's perspectives. I'm not sure of the dates exactly so I am writing this as if Ron was born March 1st 1980, sorry if that's incorrect. _

_This narrative style is going to be very different to everything else I've done before so I hope it works. It will either go spectacularly well or crash and burn in flames...wish me luck!_


	2. A First Time For Everything

**A First Time For Everything**

_6th September 2003 (Ron is 18, Hermione is 23)_

HERMIONE: I have owls coming at me left right and centre, my parents are coming on Sunday for a big roast dinner that's Ron's having to prepare in advance because he's warned himself he won't be here on Sunday and I have to be fitted for my wedding dress before the good people at Pronuptia give my design away to a bride-to-be who actually shows up when she says she will. I have so much to do and yet I can't leave the flat.

Ron's coming for the first time.

Well it's obviously not _his_ first time and it's definitely not mine but it will be the first time he remembers and understands. He's talked about that day with me so many times over the last four years that I've become kind of anxious about it the nearer it gets. He tells me I was brilliant, that I made it all make sense and that I gave him hope for a normal life, and now the time is nearly here my mind is a complete blank. I have no idea what I'm going to say to him.

I realise that the first thing I need to do is fetch him something to wear when he shows up, something to eat too he's always either hungry or thirsty after time-travelling.

I buttered some bread and rummaged through the fridge for some leftovers. There's some roast beef and lettuce, I grab some mustard and make him a roast beef sandwich.

There was a thud in the living room, followed by a loud gasp.

"Hermione?"

Godric he sounded so confused, I ran to him, I remember that first time I watched him disappear right in front of me. He looked so scared. To him this was a split second later but to me it was over five years. I saw him on his hands and knees, naked and nauseated, I smiled and threw a blanket over his shoulders.

"I've got you some clothes, I'm sorry I forgot how skinny you used to be, they might be a bit too big on you I'm afraid."

I rushed at firebolt speed to grab the jeans and sweatshirt from our bed and back to Ron before he could really process that he was inexplicably naked. He stared at me as I knelt before him and pulled the sweatshirt over his head, his hair was even scruffier than it is now, and he shivered. I knew he wasn't cold but I rubbed his arms briskly with my hands anyway and tried to stay bright and breezy in the face of his heartbreaking bewilderment.

"What happened, I felt sick and everything went blurry and now I'm naked again," his voice sounded similar to that time he had spoken to me after his dad had almost been killed by that snake outside the department of mysteries, "Why do I keep waking up naked Hermione? What do I do when I pass out?"

I hadn't seen this kind of vulnerability in him in a long time, I couldn't help myself and grabbed him and held him close to me, and I suddenly knew exactly what to say.

"You don't pass out Ron, you disappear," I could feel him pulling back to look me in the eye as if I was crazy so I held him even tighter and kissed the side of his head through his hair, "Shhh, it's ok don't worry, just listen."

I loosened my grip on him and he gave me a nod before suddenly looking embarrassed and pulling on the jeans as he got up off the floor to sit in his armchair.

"So this is how it is," I began, "you are a time-traveller. It's like a physical condition, kind of like epilepsy, and can be triggered by flashing lights or stress or exhaustion and it's nobody's fault ok? Especially not yours."

He swallowed and looked at his hands.

"But I didn't do anything, I was just, we were just talking and then you..." Ron frowned at me and examined me with great curiosity before saying, "...your hair's longer."

I smiled and twirled a loose curl around my index finger.

"I've been growing it for the wedding."

"Who's getting married?" he asked as he searched his mind for a conversation he may not have been paying attention to.

"Ron that's not the point, the point is you need to warn everybody about this so they can help you when you get home. You need to tell your mother that this explains all those times when you were a baby and you used to go missing all the time."

Ron was about to interrupt but I had certain information I needed to pass on before I forgot, he told me there was something really big that I forgot and I didn't want that to happen this time. Though that's part of the problem, this time has already happened for him, I've already neglected to tell him whatever it was. I raised my finger and put it to his lips, silencing him immediately.

"Just listen for a moment Ron, please don't let me forget this really important thing I have to tell you. Now, first things first, your mother got help from Dumbledore. She didn't know what it was that he did for you but it turns out he was stabilising you in the right time line and when he died he only had you covered until your eighteenth birthday. When did you turn eighteen Ron?"

"A couplea weeks ago," he said with a weak breath of disbelief.

He looked as if I'd given him a puppy and then shot it.

"And when did you first 'wake up nude'?"

He went an odd shade of green.

"March the third."

I sighed and gave him another hug, he looked as if he really needed it, and I found myself kissing him. Then I caught myself in the act and thought, wait a moment my Ron didn't tell me anything about this!

"I'm sorry Ron, I don't know what..." I began before he put his hand in my hair and held my head close to his.

"Don't stop," he breathed, "I want to feel something good right now, I really need to feel something...else."

I kissed him and watched as he closed his eyes and let himself go. He had such an innocence about him that I lost myself for a moment and pushed him backwards and straddled him with my usual lusty dominance. As I began to unbutton his jeans he jerked his head away and grabbed my wrist firmly but gently with his left hand.

"No I didn't mean it like that, I know you want to wait."

I laughed out loud before seeing the shock on his face and I moved my hands away from his fly and rested them on either side of his face.

"Oh you poor thing, I completely forgot what I put you through that first few months when we moved in together, I'm still making you wait aren't I? The old me, your Hermione."

Ron nodded and looked even more confused than before, but only for a few seconds, and then his eyes widened and he looked back down at his groin in a comical cartoon like way.

"You mean, we do, I mean you and I do...out of wedlock?"

I laughed so hard at this I nearly cried and kissed this oh so much younger Ron on the lips before shaking my head.

"Well the truth is I lost my virginity to you when you were married to me so it wasn't really out of wedlock at all, although I wasn't your wife yet. I'm still not."

"You mean?"

I nodded.

"I lost my virginity to an older you, a thirty-two year old married you."

His face looked childishly disgusted on hearing this.

"Yeach!"

I slapped him on the arm.

"It was not yeach, it was lovely, you get better with age I have to say."

Ron shuddered and I took his hands in mine.

"As for you Ronald Bilius Weasley, you lose yours to me when I'm engaged to you and you've just turned eighteen."

He blinked and his face went slack.

"What...?"

I suddenly realised what today was, why Ron had insisted he not be there to explain it to himself, and why I was about to forget to pass on that last important message.

"You told me when I came to you in tears and confessed I had cheated on you with yourself. We laughed about it and then we started sleeping together in all our out of wedlock glory!"

I watched as he struggled to process all of this information and saw him coming to the conclusion that he had gone insane. He warned me about this and I acted immediately.

"You know what Ron, this is scary sometimes and this is hard for both of us. You sometimes come home bleeding and beaten or freezing cold and upset and you tell me things, things that I should warn you about but then there are other times Ron, other times when you wouldn't give this gift up for the world."

"Gift?" he snapped at me, now there's the eighteen-year-old Ron I remember, "You're calling my appearing naked in different periods of time a gift Hermione? One of us is definitely insane here and I'm beginning to suspect that it ain't me!"

I laughed so hard at this that he lost the wind from his sails and gawped at me as if I'd had a personality transplant. Well what do you expect when you live with a, Ron Weasley, b, a time-traveller and c, a time-travelling Ron Weasley? I can't be the same old rigid Hermione Granger I used to be, she wouldn't last five minutes living this life of mine, that Hermione almost didn't stick at it.

I'm glad she did.

"You're the strange man who took your mother to the hospital when she went into labour with Ginny."

He looked as if he had no blood left in his face as he remembered the old family story. I continued.

"You're the homeless muggle man with the limp who taught Percy to play chess when he was five years old."

"But Bill..." Ron began, ears flashing crimson now as the blood rushed back to his head as if he had been turned upside down along with the rest of his world.

"That's right," I nodded sadly, remembering the awful state he came back to me in that day, "Bill thought you were a dirty old beggar and beat you up. That's why your mother was always so wary of you, Ginny and the twins consorting with strangers when you were children, she thought that Percy could've been kidnapped."

"But I was only a baby when that happened, and Ginny..." Ron tried so hard to make sense of it all, "I was there when Ginny...before she was even born?"

I nodded.

"You can travel anywhere within your own lifetime as far as I can figure out, although we think there may be a cure because the oldest any of us have ever met you is forty three."

Ron's eyes lowered as he had the same thought I had when I heard that fact.

"That could mean I don't live _past_ forty-three."

I brushed my hand against his cheek and we rested our foreheads against each other's, closing our eyes for a moment.

"I prefer the cure theory myself," I whisper.

"You're still an optimist then?" he muttered and I opened my eyes to look back into his blue ones.

"I'm marrying you aren't I?"

Ron seemed to be both scared and happy as he parts his lips to speak but I press my own against his and we both lost ourselves in this most bizarre moment. I was kissing my future husband, my fiancé, the man I have loved since I was eleven years old, and he is kissing the stranger who so closely resembles the loving and petrified girlfriend he left back in 1998. It was tense, wonderful and passionate. I reach to unbutton his jeans once again and he pulled his lips away from mine just long enough to pant.

"But she doesn't want me to..."

"And you won't until she's ready," I smile as I caress him between the legs, "but I want you to Ron. I want you now."

I kiss him again and feel him moan into my mouth as I wriggle down his jeans and straddle him once again.

When I wake it is to a pile of crumpled clothing beside me on the floor and I realised that I never did finish making that sandwich. As I put away the bread and the mustard Ron came wandering back into the flat. He leaned against the kitchen doorframe with his familiar broad shoulders, much more substantial upper arms and an enormous grin on his face. I can't stop myself from smiling.

"Well," he asked with a wicked little flicker in the eyes, "how'd it go?"

I actually find myself blushing.

"You know how it went Ronald Weasley. I forgot to give you your sandwich."

Ron reaches out for the plate and took the sandwich he should have eaten five years earlier. He took a large bite.

"Mmm, worth waiting for," he smiled as he chewed.

"I have to say that I miss your wiry little body," I moved across to him and circled my arms around his waist, "though the muscle tone is still very much appreciated."

Time travel does tend to require a certain level of physical fitness and, despite still being quite svelte, the Ron of September 2003 has a subtle little six-pack and a pair of arms to die for.

"Hey maybe this is the thing you forgot to tell me, about the sandwich I mean?"

I suddenly realised what it was I had neglected to mention.

"Oh no, I didn't warn you!"

Ron blinked at me and swallowed his mouthful.

"Warn me about what?"

I wondered if he'd be angry with me for keeping this to myself.

"Warn you about Lavender."

* * *

_March 10th 1998 (Ron and Hermione are 18)_

RON: I felt dizzy and sick but more than anything else I felt as if somebody had just introduced me to my own life and instructed me how to live it. I groaned, as I got up shakily, naked again, what is it with the naked thing? Something smashed and Hermione screamed. I blinked and looked around for her.

He was pulling her head out of the fireplace, the green flames fading away, and crawling across the rug on her hands and knees in tears.

"Oh thank Merlin you came back," she gasped as she hugged me so hard I worried that I might puke all over her back.

"I was...I was gone?" I said, still unable to get my head around this shit, I had been in the flat the whole time.

"You just disappeared, you were feeling ill and you fell down and you just...you just...and all that was left was your clothes on the floor. Oh Ron I was so scared, I didn't know what had happened to you."

I stroked her hair and shushed her a few times while feeling slightly uncomfortable for two reasons. One being that I was hugging my girlfriend of barely a year completely starkers and the other being that I had just lost my virginity to her...without her actually being there with me.

"It all happened so fast," she sniffed as I rocked her and rubbed her back, "we were talking and then you fell and you were gone and I flooed Harry and before I even got to tell him what happened you were back again."

I pulled away and stared at her face.

"I was only gone long enough for you to floo Harry's place and not get a word out?"

She wiped her face and nodded.

"Why, how long was it for you?" she said with another sniff.

"I don't know," I shrugged, "but it was longer than that, half and hour maybe, an hour?"

Hermione bit her bottom lip and suddenly jumped to her feet to grab a towel from the clothes horse where it had been drying after her bath and handed it to me. I had just wrapped it around myself when the fireplace exploded with green flames and Harry ran out with his wand drawn.

"What happened Hermione? What's wrong with Ron? Where did you go?" he blustered before seeing me staring back at him in shock wearing nothing but a damp towel.

"He came back Harry, it's ok, I'm sorry I just left you like that but I wanted to make sure he was alright," Hermione said frantically as she gathered my clothes up from the floor and shoved them into my arms.

"What do you mean he came back? Is this another fight? Shit you two I thought you were being attacked or something!" Harry huffed angrily as he put his wand away.

"Sorry Harry, look I don't know what happened exactly but..." Hermione began.

"Listen let me get dressed and then I'll explain it to you ok?" I said as I backed into our bedroom in a daze.

Hermione turned and stared at me in wonder.

"You know what happened to you?"

"Yeah, you told me," I knew that would just open up a whole avenue of confusion and closed the door on the barrage of question that were about to come flying.

I rested my head against the door and tried to go over everything that had just happened in the last hour that wasn't.

I was a time traveller.

Bill was going to beat me up.

I was going to take my mum to the hospital while she was in labour with Ginny.

I was going to marry Hermione.

I just had sex.

I slid down the door and let out an amazed exhalation.

I just had _sex!_

* * *

_A/N Well I'm pretty sure the readers of my last three longs fics have noticed that I'm going somewhere a little different with this one. I don't want to be one of those fic writers who go all soft porn on their readers, I can't stand that crap myself, but I also don't want to deliberately avoid intimacy just because I feel weird writing it._

_I think you know me well enough by now to expect some angst here and there...well everywhere! But there will also be more of what you got in The Man Who Wasn't There, Ron and Hermione shipper bliss!_

_I'd appreciate it if you could give me a soft porn alarm (S.P.A.) if I ever go over the top...of course if you are left wanting more I could suggest you get out there and find a real life person to get up to mischief with. I kind of have one myself now and he's younger than me by quite a bit, I'M A CRADLE SNATCHER! (Don't laugh Scrib, if you knew how much of my writing imitated life you'd be very very worried for me!)._

_Shari (Solstice Muse)_


	3. Undercover Operations

_A/N To the reviewer who informed me I should credit The Time Traveler's Wife...I already did, before I even wrote the title in fact, and I name-checked the author. Please tell me if you feel I should do something more and I will gladly do it for you._

**Chapter Two - Undercover Operations**

_May 18th 1998 (Ron is 18)_

"Weasley please," the round man peered around the door with his beady eyes and slicked back oily black hair and called out to the waiting room.

I got to my feet and walked over to him. He looked me up and down in a very disapproving way and I tried not to stare at the large potbelly he possessed as he turned sideways on to show me into his office. Close up I could see where the teeth of his comb had sliced through the grease that plastered his hair flat to his shiny head.

"Hello Mr Weasley, I am Frank Langley and I will be witling down the applicants for this particular position within the ministry today."

I cleared my throat as I followed the spherical wizard as he waddled over to his desk and nodded for me to sit down in the vacant chair while he eased himself between the wall and the corner of the filling cabinet in order to sit down himself.

"See the thing is Mr Langley, I'm not exactly clear what this position is," I tried to explain before he noticed how incredibly unprepared I was for this interview.

"Well of course you don't, it is a top secret vacancy within a top secret department and we select the applicants we think might suit the position and invite them in for interviews."

I blinked, this told me nothing about the job I was up for, and I wondered if I had any say in whether I took it or not if offered.

"You see we only take the best, the most ambitious and unique of individuals and if people knew that this small department even existed then we'd be inundated with any old body who wanted a glamorous job full of daring deeds and near limitless power and authority."

It was at that point I sat back in my chair and relaxed; there was no way I was getting this job.

"It's like the Auror programme itself, isn't it?" Langley said, more to himself than to me, "everybody wants to do it, they all apply and most of them are useless. Then they go into training and most of those ones drop out until finally we get a dozen or so new Aurors released into the department and, if we're lucky, one of them is sometimes halfway decent."

I fidgeted in my seat uncomfortably, Harry was in the Auror programme right now and I wondered if he was going to survive it to become the one halfway decent Auror in his class. There was also that other reason for my discomfort too though, the thing I suspected Langley was reading in my file just before he pursed his lips and looked back up at me with no sense of embarrassment whatsoever.

"I see here that you were rejected from the Auror programme in the early stages of the selection process."

"Yeah well, the thing about that was..." I began as I sat forward in my seat.

"Don't care," Langley said as he waved his hand and looked back at my file and narrowed his eyes, "if I wanted a gung-ho egomaniac with a death wish I would advertise within the Auror department myself, being rejected only makes you more promising in my opinion."

I sat back in my seat again and wondered what I was supposed to say to that.

"Oh," was all I could come up with.

"I also notice that you have been arrested no less than five times in the last month alone," the man said, looking disgusted but sounding strangely impressed.

Again I sat forward to explain myself.

"Yeah well there's a funny story about that actually," I began.

"Don't care," Langley sniffed as he examined that particular page of my file even closer, "indecent exposure eh?"

"It's not what it sounds like," I said anxiously as Langley turned to the next page of my file as if I wasn't even there.

"Don't care about explanations Weasley, I just care that you've been released without charge every time and on one occasion you escaped the custody of three Aurors and nine ministry police officers _and_ your holding cell _and _your handcuffs _and _your restraining charms..."

He was going to go on forever, I had to stop him.

"What you've got to understand is that I didn't escape exactly..."

"I hadn't finished Mr Weasley," Langley said pointedly as he drummed his chubby fingers on his desk and read on, "Now where was I? Oh yes, _and_ the items of clothing that were provided for you at the time of your arrest."

I waited for him to give me the nod to speak. He never did.

"I like a man who can get out of sticky situations, even if he does create them himself."

Langley turned over a few more pages of my file in complete silence and I just sat back in my chair and folded my arms in a huff. I wondered how I would explain this to Hermione. She had told me that the charges being dropped every time meant that my time-epilepsy couldn't be held against me. She told me that if ever anybody tried to discriminate against me because of it I was to get on my high horse and start quoting all the magical laws and precedents she had made me memorise. She had been livid when the Aurors had told me to sod-off after I disappeared in the middle of my evaluation for three and a half minutes. I couldn't be bothered putting up a fight for this job though, I didn't even know if I wanted it, and I didn't even know what it was.

"Very good," Langley said as he closed my file and stacked it on top of a pile of others that wobbled precariously on the side of his desk, "so I am about to give you a set of circumstances and I want you to tell me your reaction to them do you understand?"

I opened my mouth to speak.

"Good. Now here is the situation Weasley, there never was a job here and this isn't even a building within the ministry. When you flooed in with the others we intercepted the network and redirected you to this location in order to pick your brains on what you know about the new Auror programme and it's new applicants, namely one Mr Harry Potter."

I rose from my chair and reached for my wand but Langley was ready for me and performed some non-verbal spells that caused my wand to fly into his hand and the chair to slam into the back of my legs, knocking me back into the sitting position. Several bindings curled around the arms of the chair and fixed my own arms securely to them and Langley smiled and heaved himself up from his groaning chair.

"You tell us what we want to know and all I'll do is obliviate you. If you don't tell us anything I will cut you into ten pieces and send a segment to each of your bothers, your sister, your mother and father, Miss Hermione Granger, Mr Potter and I think it would be quite funny to see what that abomination Hagrid up at Hogwarts makes of a portion. He'd feed it to his dog I presume, always thought more of beasts then men that one as far as I can remember."

This couldn't be a trap, Hermione checked it out, I had asked my dad to verify the authenticity of the letter. This must be his test; this must be part of the interview I told myself.

"Don't bother sending a piece to Percy, he wouldn't recognise his own flesh and blood if I came running down the street naked and punched him!"

Langley raised both of his eyebrows and picked up my closed file.

"Something I see from you file you have in fact already done."

I smiled at him; this had to be a test. He crossed the room and pulled out his wand, pointing it at himself, before a flash illuminated his face and I watched as his round body deflated into a lithe frame with pale skin and long blonde hair. Langley was transforming into Lucius Malfoy. I jerked at the bindings and really hoped that this was another part of the test.

"I've concocted this new way of changing one's physical appearance Weasley, I never could stand the after taste of Pollyjuice potion, and I just wanted to time the moment when you realised you were finished to perfection."

He sat on the corner of the desk and casually flicked his wand at my chest.

"_Oppugno!"_

I was blasted backwards, my chair flying over with me still bound to it, and slammed down on my back. I tried to break the arms of the chair but more bindings were strapping my legs and torso to it as I did. Malfoy sighed lazily and stood up again, taking a couple of steps to stand over me, and aimed a kick into the side of my rib cage. The kick landed so hard that the chair rolled over to the side with me still strapped into it.

"You're just going to sit there and let me chop you up aren't you Weasley?" Malfoy sneered as he summoned a sword from where it hung on the wall.

I could feel the familiar nausea coming over me, well it did tend to happen when I was stressed and this was definitely a stressful time no doubt about that, I tried to distract him so I had enough time to let it take me.

"Azkaban wasn't kind to your hair Malfoy, you're looking a little thin up top there mate," I managed just before my vision blurred.

I melted away from that room, that chair; those bindings and that time in my life and found myself curled up on the floor with nothing on outside my own flat. I lost my willpower and was sick on my own doorstep. As I retched I pounded on the front door and hoped somebody was home. I heard footsteps running and then the door was flung open just as I spat the last of the bile from my lips to look up into my own face.

"Oh shit have we just had another kicking?" the older-looking me asked as he hauled me inside and slammed the door closed.

I nodded and pointed to my rib cage, which was bruising quite nicely. My other self winced and pointed his wand over his shoulder and summoned a bottle of water from the kitchen. It flew into his hand and he unscrewed the lid and poured it into my mouth.

"You don't even look twenty yet," he said as he squinted into my face, letting me take the bottle myself to drink from while he flicked his wand at my ribs, "_Sano!_"

I felt the bruise swell rapidly and then change about four different colours before fading into nothing and rubbed my rib cage to discover that it was completely healed now.

"Remember that one, you'll need it," he said to me while still trying to figure something out for himself, "how old are you?"

"Eighteen," I said as I reached for one of the robes on the cloak stand to cover myself up with.

"You've only just started doing this?" he asked as he helped me up.

I nodded and took another swig from the water bottle. It always amazes me how thirsty time travelling makes me, I get hungry too but as Hermione is always reminding me, there's never a time when I'm not hungry. I'm hungry while I'm paying the bill at a restaurant.

"The first kicking I got when all this started was..." he looked up at me and broke into a huge grin,"...you're at the job interview!"

"Well I thought it was a job interview," I snorted as I pulled the robe around myself a little tighter.

My other self was bouncing on the balls of his feet enthusiastically.

"No it _is_, it is a real job interview, for a real job; our job. Langley just wanted to see you disappear. He knew you could do it but he couldn't work out how and why so he had to make you think your were in mortal peril in order to make you do it in front of him."

I blinked and shook my head in disbelief.

"When you get back he's gonna be his old fat self again and he'll offer you the job."

"What? What is this job anyway?"

"That doesn't matter," my older self waved his hand dismissively, "you've got to remember this. He will offer you the job, you will shake his hand and you will walk to the door. You open the door and turn back to him and tell him that his wife will burn his steak tonight and at eight o'clock exactly the portrait of his grandparents will fall off the wall and the corner will get burnt in the fire. Tell him that."

I felt myself getting dizzy again and reached out to grab my older self's arm, I paused momentarily to acknowledge that I've become quite a bit bigger than I am now, before looking up and trying to make sense of this odd message.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I told myself when I was you."

I fell to my knees and shook my head. He crouched with me.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I don't know how I knew the first time round but I did and I told you and now we're in this circle thing, you'll tell another you when you're me."

"Stop talking please!" I begged him as the nausea hit me again and my vision blurred.

"Just tell him, the next time you see him he'll be amazed!"

With the sound of my own voice ringing in my ears I felt the pressure of scratchy carpet against my skin and opened my eyes to see that I was back in the interview room again. My clothes were neatly folded on the chair I had been bound to earlier and the orb-like version of Langley was sitting behind his desk writing something down on my file. He peered over the top of the paper and gestured for me to sit down again.

I picked myself up off the floor and tried to conceal my modesty behind the chair while I pulled my clothes back on.

"Very impressive, anxiety induced is it?" he asked as he put down his quill and closed my file.

As I hoped up and down on one leg to put my trousers on I nodded.

"Yeah, it can be when I'm tired as well and flickering lights don't help much either."

"Hmmm, symptoms similar to epilepsy. The authorities know of course, they wouldn't have released you and they certainly wouldn't have been so understanding about your escape from their cell otherwise. I don't doubt that this condition limits your opportunities to get work."

I pulled on my shirt and looked away from him as I answered.

"Pretty much."

"No wonder the Aurors didn't want you."

I sat down to put my shoes back on and Langley stroked his wobbly dimpled chin.

"You seem to be healed, I'm sorry about that, had to convince after all, how long were you away?"

"Five minutes?" I shrugged, "How long was I gone this end?"

"Three and a half hours," Langley said as if it was nothing.

"What?" I said, freezing in the middle of tying my shoelaces.

It had never been like that before; usually I was only gone for minutes in the present but hours in the future.

"Yes, quite impressive like I said."

As I tucked my shirt in and reached out for my jacket Langley leaned over the desk and extended his hand.

"Welcome to undercover operations Agent Weasley, you're going to be in charge of digging out the dead wood and the moles in the Auror department."

I gaped at him as I shook his hand and pulled my jacket on and watched him sit down behind his desk and put my file away in one of his side drawers.

"Show yourself out Weasley, and remember this is hush hush, tell your family you work for the Auror department in personnel recruitment."

I nodded and backed out of the room, I was almost at the door when I decided to give my own advice a try.

"Um Mr Langley?"

"Yes Agent Weasley?"

"I'd pick something up to eat on the way home tonight, your wife's going to burn your steak. Oh and at eight o'clock sharp that portrait of your grandparents will fall into the fire and the corner's gonna get singed, sorry."

With that I shrugged and walked out of the room, closing the door on the startled expression on Langley's face as I went and turned around to see the receptionist looking at me a little oddly.

"Rough interview," I said as I tucked in the last of my overhanging shirttail and set off home to tell Hermione the good, and partially censored, news.


	4. Falling

**Falling**

_1st April 2011 and 18th August 2014 (Ron is 31 and 34, Hermione is 34)_

RON: I was in Hogsmede trying to track down the owner of the ring I had found at the scene of the murder. It had to belong to the mole. He wasn't just a mole now though was he? He may not have actually killed Parker but it was his leaked information that led his Auror squad right into the potential massacre.

I recognised it from somewhere but I just couldn't place it. It had to be from somewhere around the ministry. I'd seen it on somebody at work and now I couldn't pin the memory down enough to be able to delve into a pensive and find out who it was I saw wearing the thing.

Eldridge is furious to think that the ministry can't find out who this guy is. We've laid traps, fed miss-information to see if that gets leaked, it's as if he's right in the middle of the team trying to find him. That's what Parker always thought. Parker always suspected it was me and I always suspected it was him and now he's dead and everybody's wondering why somebody so damn good at his job and with this wonderful little knack of being able to see the future hasn't been able to identify the bastard in the past nine years.

I wonder how many people think it's me. I wonder if that's his plan. I'm kind of scared that it might be working.

"Ron, is tha you?" I hear a gruff voice and turn around with a smile.

"Alright Hagrid?"

The big friendly giant lifts me off the ground in one of his smothering hugs and I try not to inhale the revolting smell that is emanating from the fur waistcoat he's wearing. I wonder how long ago the creature it's made from actually died.

"What you doin' all the way up 'ere in Hogsmede?"

"Work," I said as we started to walk through the village together.

"Not travellin'? I was afraid you were on one of your Hogwarts visits again when I saw yeh," Hagrid's smile faded as he remembered something that troubled him greatly, "terrible that last time, terrible."

He shook his head and went quiet for a while and I thought back to the last time I'd been at Hogwarts. I'd played McGonagall at chess for three hours and gone down for breakfast in the great hall at the teachers table where Hagrid told me about a new variety of moth he wanted to breed that had a fifteen foot wingspan and venomous antennae. He had bemoaned the fact that they were dying before they grew over three and a half inches by flying into the flames of candles, something I had found quite amusing and Hagrid had very much not.

"Is this my last time we're talking about or yours Hagrid?"

Hagrid slapped me on the back, winding me and separating my shoulders ever so slightly, and shook his head.

"It's already happened so there's no changing it or tryin' teh warn yeh is there? Just you know that when you find yerself down there and there don't seem no hope help's on its way alrigh'?"

This was obviously one of those nasty episodes thatI hadn't had yet. Well Hagrid said he would be on his way soI knewI was going to be alright in the end. He was right, there was no point in worrying about it now.

"So business eh?" Hagrid said, perking himself up by force of will apparently, "Anythin' I can help with?"

"No I'm just trying to find out who made or sold this and who it was made for or sold it to," I took the ring out of my pocket and handed it to Hagrid.

He squinted at it for a very long time before handing it back with a distant look on his face.

"Tha looks right familiar tha does, I've seen tha somewhere before."

"You and me both," I said as I put the ring back into my pocket, "it's the where that's the problem."

A group of miniscule Hogwarts students passed the two of us and I stared at them incredulously before looking up at Hagrid who didn't even seem to register anything odd at all.

"Hagrid," I said, punching him in the arm to get his attention, "since when did the first years start getting Hogsmede privileges?"

"They don't," Hagrid frowned down at me.

"Well what d'you call that then?" I asked as I pointed to the group of titchy students.

"I call tha third years Ron, you've got to remember you were quite short once yourself," he chuckled down at me.

"I was not," I snorted.

"You still are teh me," Hagrid said before ruffling my hair as if I was a little kid.

"Hagrid," I said as I attempted to flatten my hair back down, "there are some giraffes that are quite small to you."

He chuckled at that and I tried to remember what we had been talking about.

"So you think it was bought here in Hogsmede then eh?"

The ring; that was it.

"Oh yeah, I traced it to the jewellers just a couple of doors down from the tea room, thought I'd see if they remembered who they sold it to or if they've got a record of it being made anywhere. I really need to find the bastard who owns this."

"Nasty piece of work is he?"

I nodded sadly.

"Somebody died because I haven't been able to find out who he is yet."

Hagrid put one of his huge hands on my shoulder and gave me a look of sympathy.

"Friend of yours was it?"

"No actually, we didn't really like each other. Well it wasn't that we didn't like each other, he saved my life once, we just didn't trust each other and now it turns out that the person I suspected him of being is the very same person who got him killed."

"Tha's not your fault then is it? You were both being vigilant like you're supposed teh when tryin' teh hunt a bad 'un. You get 'im Ron, I'm sure of it."

I smiled up at Hagrid and wondered how he would deal with it if this whole rap got pinned on me.

_Pop! Whoosh! Bang! Bang! Bang!_

We both jumped and spun around to see what the commotion behind us was all about, I had my wand drawn before I really even thought about it, and we both relaxed when we saw that it was just the third years letting of some of Fred and George's wet start fireworks.

Hagrid began to say something about the twins and their legendary display for the benefit of Umbridge but I wasn't taking in any of what he was saying. The rapid flashes had sent my head into a spin and I couldn't focus on anything around me anymore. I was falling to the ground but as my clothes fell away from me and the ground came up to meet me I just kept on going through it.

I was falling and falling and falling until...

_THUNK!_

HERMIONE: When I got the call Ron wasn't with me. He had gone travelling just before we went to bed and he still hadn't come back yet. I thought it must have been him.

"Mrs Weasley?" Healer Wanless greeted me with an anxious smile.

He was a very young healer when we first started going to him at the start of Ron's problems, although Ron already knew him, having been treated by him when Healer Wanless was in his forties and Ron was still a teenager, and he still looked quite youthful now. He had very fair skin that contrasted strikingly with his short dark brown hair. He had his own brand of winning smile and there has been more than one occasion when I had run into St Mungo's emergency treatment room to be faced with both his and Ron's 'what are you so worried about?' grins. I don't know where we would have been without him.

"How is he Ben, what happened to him?"

"Well it looks as if he fell out of the sky again," Ron's personal healer said with a grimace.

I put my hand to my face and hoped it wasn't going to look as bad as the image I just had flash into my mind.

"Do you know how high up he was when it happened?"

"Well fortunately not high enough to do any irreparable damage," the healer said as he put an arm around me and guided me to Ron's room, "We're still getting really lucky with these falls Mrs Weasley. We both know how high he went riding that thestral and if he reappears in that space at any time then there will be nothing anybody will be able to do."

It was the thing we all dreaded most of all. Ron's ability to show up anywhere he had ever been in his lifetime meant that he was now paying an awful price for loving to fly so much. He had broken so many bones when he just fell out of the sky before the three gold hoops on the Hogwarts quiddich pitch that his whole family began to make internal lists of all the different places Ron has flown over the years and came to the conclusion that he could drop out of the sky almost anywhere. Fred and George had been quite sickened when they thought about how high up they had flown that car in the second year.

"Where's our boy though?" Healer Wanless asked as he realised I was alone.

"He went travelling earlier tonight," I was about to confirm that this meant the Ron we were about to see wasn't the present day Ron when it occurred to me that it couldn't have been. Ron vanished in our bedroom doorway so that would be where he reappeared as well, "I'm going to have to send him an owl to let him know where I am, I forgot to leave a note."

"I'll get it done for you when I show you in. Don't worry yourself about it."

As he pushed open the door to Ron's treatment room I saw three medi witches fussing around him and healing various head wounds. I squinted through their bodies as they rushed back and forth and tried to make out what sort of age he was. Healer Wanless must've read my mind and he leaned over to whisper into my ear.

I'd say he's not far off the present Mrs Weasley, maybe a year or two younger, I can tell by what scars he does and doesn't have."

I drew in a deep breath and nodded, that was they way I usually judged what sort of time Ron was travelling from, I wondered what scars of his were from this very accident as I crossed the room to step between the medi witches and take his hand in mine.

"You are the wife?" one of the women said with a smile and I nodded while another pushed a chair behind my legs, knocking me into the sitting position at Ron's bedside.

"Well healer Wanless has done a marvellous job on all the internal injuries, we fixed his broken pelvis, almost shattered I'm afraid but it's good as new now. It's my specialty I'm proud to say so it should be stronger than ever."

I smiled up at her.

"Thank you very much."

The medi witch moved aside to continue working on what appeared to be a broken foot while a second medi witch tapped Ron's head with her wand and a soft pink glow shimmered around his head before seeping in and disappearing completely.

"Fractured his skull dear," she said with a wink, "but no damage to his brain don't worry. We're going to have to deal with a very serious concussion as soon as we're done but I'm told you've plenty of experience in that area yourself?"

I nodded again, I had too much experience with almost every possible way my husband could get hurt, but thought that concussion wasn't the worst thing I might have had to deal with that night.

"Hey babe," Ron suddenly said from behind me, Healer Wanless running after him to hand him a pair of shoes to put on, he seemed breathless, "I just got back and saw Ben's owl crapping on the rug."

I reached out for him and took his hand, I now held my husbands left hand in the present and the past at the same time, he must've thrown on a pair of jogging bottoms and a long sleeved t-shirt before jumping into the fireplace barefoot.

"Concussion watch again tonight it seems," I smiled and Healer Wanless nodded before conjuring a chair for Ron beside me and two of the mediwitches followed him out while the last one finished working on his head.

"Well at least we know I'm alright, I never show up back home in any kind of mess from this do I? Ben said this one's from the past."

"He is," I said as I pulled back the covers to reveal a healing slash on his hip, "this is how you got this one look."

Ron lifted up his t-shirt and pulled down the waistband of his joggers to reveal a crescent shaped white scar in the same place.

"Huh," he said, "well that clears that one up."

I covered the sleeping Ron again and looked up as the medi witch caught my eye with a warm smile.

"I'm just going to wake him up to do the first test and then I can leave the two of you to keep it up every hour until morning can I?"

Ron and I nodded and watched as the medi witch flicked her wand into the unconscious Ron's face and said the revival spell.

"_Ennervate!"_

The spell hit him and his face contorted into a grimace before his eyes blinked open and stared up at the medi witch groggily.

"Do you know what your name is sir?" she smiled.

"Ron Weasley," he groaned, seeming to recognise the first of the concussion questionnaire as soon as he heard it and just wanting to get it over with and go to sleep.

"How old are you?"

"Thirty one," he mumbled as his eyes fell closed again.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital."

"What's is your address?"

"Hornet's Nest," he said in barely a sigh, he was almost asleep again.

The medi witch stared at the two of us at his bedside with a confused look on her face.

"It's our floo address," I explained to her and she seemed happy enough with that.

"I need your eyes open Mr Weasley, you know that, look at me please," she said firmly.

He groaned and lifted his eyelids to focus back on the medi witch again.

"Do you know what day it is?"

The Ron beside me stifled a snort and I nudged him in the ribs to get him to behave.

"I'm fucked if I know!" the concussed Ron said with no more facial expression other than a pair of raised eyebrows at the pointlessness of that question.

"Ron language," I said, hating myself for sounding like his mother.

"Give the guy a break babe," my Ron said with a smile, "he's not with it."

"I don't mind Mrs Weasley, it must be very disorienting to wake up in a whole other time, the time is ten forty three now," she said as she looked at the clock on the wall, "could you do the honours at a quarter to midnight and then every hour afterwards for me?"

We both nodded and I looked down at the already sleeping Ron in the hospital bed.

My Ron put his arm around my shoulders and whispered into my hair.

"I can do this, you go home and get some sleep babe."

I curled my arms around him and rested my head on his chest.

"No I want to stay and keep you both company," I murmured into his t-shirt.

I felt him planting a kiss on the top of my head and we sat in silence like that for the next hour.

11:45PM

"Oi wake up, what's your name?"

"Same as yours," the injured Ron grumbled sleepily to his healthy counterpart who had just rudely awoken him, "can't you answer these questions and let me get some sleep?"

"Come on mate, you know that's not how it works. Name?"

"Ron Weasley," he said with a sigh as he closed his eyes.

"You've got to look at me for this or I'll make you do it all over again from the beginning," my Ron said, almost sounding like Madame Pomfrey when she was dealing with Ron being a difficult patient all those times at school.

I tried not to smile at this strict side of him.

"I hate you," the injured Ron mumbled to his other self who grinned wickedly back at him.

"Well I love you! Now tell me your age."

"Thirty one."

"Do you know where you are?"

"In hell," Ron said as he scrunched up his face and rubbed his head.

I looked up at my Ron with concern but he gave me a smile and shook his head to tell me not to worry.

"Do you want to go back to the beginning again, I'll do it, you know how petty I can be?"

"I'm in St Mungo's," Ron growled.

"Address?"

"Hornet's Nest."

"And the ridiculous question is...?"

The injured Ron broke into the slightest of smiles at that and muttered his answer.

"April Fool's Day."

My Ron's eyes widened on hearing this.

"It's never April the first for you!" he looked at me and suddenly added up the date and his other self's age in his head before turning back to his dozing self in the bed, "Wait a minute, were you just with Hagrid?"

The sleepy Ron gave a murmur and my Ron looked at me with a shake of the head.

"So this is where I went."

"So you don't remember any of this?" I asked him and he shook his head.

"I remember falling down talking to Hagrid and then I'm being carried up to the hospital wing at Hogwarts by the big guy bawling his eyes out!"

I put my hand to his amused face and pulled him back into me to continue our silent snuggle until the next hour came along.

12:45AM

"Ron, Ron wake up," I said with a slight shake of his shoulder, "I'd really prefer you woke up for me naturally rather than me using the spell Ron."

I looked over my shoulder at my own Ron slumped in his seat with his head lolling and snoring away before turning back and pinching the fleshy part of Ron's earlobe very hard. He made a squealing sound at the back of his throat and scowled up at me.

"I hate it when you do that," he said, his voice sounding quite rough as he spoke.

"What's your name Ron?"

He looked at me and laughed before wincing and clutching his head.

"Well we'll skip that one now I've told you the answer," I said, slightly embarrassed, "How old are you?"

"Thirty one as ever."

"Where are you?"

"Mungo's"

"Where's your flat?"

"North London, Mornington Crescent."

I felt quite proud of myself for varying the question so he had to give a different answer and decided to have another crack at it.

"What day is our wedding anniversary?"

He was just dropping off when he opened one of his eyes and looked right at me and smiled.

"You know I can never remember that."

I was raising my hand to slap him but he was still quite fragile so I turned to his sleeping counterpart and hit him on the arm instead.

"What the hell?" he said as he woke up and stared at me with sleepy eyes, "Is something wrong, d'you need Ben?" he said as he got to his feet.

I pulled him back down into his chair and laughed at his confusion before turning back to see the other Ron had dropped off again with a tiny smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

1:45AM

"Oi mush, up!" Ron said wearily as he shook himself roughly.

The sleeping Ron opened his eyes and heaved a frustrated sigh.

"Ron Weasley, thirty one, in hospital, Camden Town, don't know, sod off!"

His eyes closed and he was sleeping almost instantly. My Ron turned to look back at me with an impressed expression on his face.

"Succinct and to the point, I like it!"

He sat back down beside me and I nestled into him, feeling like a nap myself, and I felt him stroking my hair gently.

"I never asked you where you'd been while you were gone," I sighed as my eyes fell closed.

"Just home, the Burrow."

There was something about his minimal use of words that made me think there was more to his trip than just a dinner with his family or a chat with his mother.

"And?" I probed as I looked up at him and saw that he was looking out of the moonlit window thoughtfully.

He turned back to me and smiled before lowering his head and kissing me on the lips.

"Not now eh?"

I let it go...for the time being.

2:45AM

I was alone, Ron had gone down to the cafeteria to get us something to eat and drink, and I leaned over the injured Ron's bed to wake him when his eyes opened and he was looking right at me. I leaned in and kissed him softly, pausing to push back his hair and check that his head wound was still healing nicely, and Ron whispered up at me.

"Name?"

I smiled down at him and kissed his lips again.

"Hermione Weasley."

"Age?"

"Thirty four."

"Where are you now?"

I leaned in even closer and practically answered the question into his mouth.

"Right where I want to be."

He kissed me back and smiled as I moved away again.

"What day is it today?"

"It is the early hours of the nineteenth of August two thousand and four."

He raised his eyebrows.

"It's mum's birthday."

With that his eyes closed again and I returned to my seat just in time to see Ron walking back in with two cups of tea and four packets of crisps between his teeth.

"Healthy Ron, very healthy," I said as I took my cup from him and he opened his mouth to drop the bags into my lap.

"What? It was all they had at this time of night that wasn't stale."

He sat down beside me and opened one of the packets, beginning to munch while I sipped my tea and looked at his other self sleeping peacefully.

"It's that time again," Ron said, his mouthful of crisps, as he looked to the clock on the wall.

"No it's not, I've already done it."

We sat and ate our fatty late night snack and spent the rest of the next hour just staring at each other and twisting our fingers in the other's hair absent-mindedly.

3:45AM

"Name your mother calls you when you've upset her?" my Ron was barking down at himself, who jumped at the sudden raised voice.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley!" he said in shock.

My Ron chuckled at this and his other self relaxed back down onto the bed to go over the rest of the questions while casting annoyed glances at his inquisitor.

"How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

"Eighteen," he said sheepishly.

"Where in the flat have you done it with my wife?"

I laughed out loud at this and the other Ron was really struggling not to give in and smile at this new line of questioning.

"Where haven't I done it with your wife?"

Both Ron's sniggered at this and I punched the healthy one in the arm again.

"Where did Doctor Foster fall in a puddle?"

"Somewhere in Gloucester."

This one totally passed me by but Ron seemed to be satisfied with the answer so I didn't say anything about it.

"March the first 2024?"

The two Ron's looked at each other and the younger one swallowed.

"You're the oldest, you know better than me, have you seen it yet?"

My Ron shook his head.

He never stopped trying to find that forty four year old version of himself. Time was passing and still nobody had seen him.

"Go to sleep," my Ron nodded before excusing himself and going for a walk.

4:45AM

I sat up to wake the visiting Ron when I noticed that my Ron had tears in his eyes and was trying to keep his head turned away from me so I couldn't see it.

"Ron what's the matter?" I said as I pulled at his arm to make him turn around.

He sniffed and wiped his face before answering me in a very muggy sounding voice.

"It's nothing just ignore me alright?"

I got up from my chair and moved around to his other side, crouching down to make him look at me. It was always unsettling to see Ron cry. It wasn't that he didn't do it but he hated to in front of anybody, not even me, and his eyes shone in the light of the moon.

"I will not ignore you. Tell me please, what's upsetting you? Is it what you were asking yourself about earlier?"

He wiped his face again and shook his head.

"Well what is it Ron, you're scaring me."

He sat back and patted himself on the lap, indicating that he wanted me to sit there, and as I settled myself upon him he encircled my body with his arms and wept on my shoulder for almost an entire minute.

"It's ok babe I'm here, don't get yourself into a state now come on. What's happened, is it your trip tonight?"

He nodded and squeezed me harder.

"I knew there was something you weren't telling me," I said as I rubbed my hand up and down his back and felt him take several shuddering breaths in an attempt to shake off his little emotional overload, "what happened back at the Burrow Ron? Please tell me."

He held me close and began to tell me everything. He was struggling to pull himself together as he spoke about it and my own eyes were watering when I thought about what he had just had to do and that he had come straight here and repressed it for the sake of me and his other self.

"The whole family was there and they were all so old, really old Hermione, and they were looking at me like...they were really shocked to see me. Ginny grabbed me and dragged me up the stairs to mum and dad's room and shoved me inside and...and..."

Ron had showed up at his house just in time to hold his mother's hand as she died.

"She was really old so it's not that bad y'know?" he whimpered into my hair, "She obviously had a good long life and she wasn't in any pain at all but..." I felt his shoulders shaking and I held him to me as if a strong wind was threatening to rip him from my arms forever, "I didn't want to see that Hermione, not now, not yet, not ever."

We had been holding each other for almost five minutes before I looked over to the bed and saw that the visiting Ron had gone back where he had come from. A frantically worried Hagrid was cradling him and a desperately sad wife who knew there was nothing to say or do to take this pain away was comforting my Ron.

I sniffed.

"What's your name?" I asked as the tears pushed their way out of my eyes.

"Ronnie," he said as his shoulders began to shake once again and I felt the fabric of my shirt dampening where his face was hidden.

"How old are you?" I choked.

"It doesn't matter, I'm always the baby boy."

I tried to keep myself together.

"Where are you?"

His voice seemed to break as he strained to give me my answer.

"I'm lost."

"Where do you live?"

"Home."

"What day is it?"

He was shaking all over now and I began to sob into his hair while he broke down, still hiding his face in the side of my neck.

"What day is it Ronnie?"

"It's her birthday."


	5. Black Sheep

**Black Sheep**

_3rd April 2004 (Ron is 18, Hermione is 24)_

HERMIONE: I was up to my elbows in the glowing purple gunk that had exploded all over one of my colleagues in the magical rehabilitation centre when the fireplace burned green and Percy's head stared out at me with a grimace and a funny sounding lisp for some reason.

"Hermione I need you to come over to my place as soon as you're cleaned up please, Ronald's here and...well he's young."

My hands were well and truly stuck in the rapidly solidifying purple goop while my colleague Paula screamed about her beautiful hair being ruined and three house elves ran about the lab frantically apologising for thinking it possible that they could ever become productive individuals within magical society. Tippy was so mortified that he was slamming his head in my locker door as I answered.

"Percy you can see how busy I am and you know the routine, if he shows up as a baby we take him to your mother's or drop him off at Bill and Fleur's to play with Cam," I huffed and tried to blow a loose strand of hair out of my face.

"No Hermione, I don't mean baby young I mean," Percy seemed to flinch and sigh about something he was listening to in the background, "I mean teenage young."

I could see it now, Ron the hot headed newly empowered time traveller showing up at his disowned brother's place and giving him what for. Except Percy wasn't disowned anymore, not in this time, and Ron never really managed to control his temper until he was about twenty.

"Look I'll clean up and be on my way over but can't you call Fred or George to help out in the meantime?"

Percy's head turned around to look behind him and he looked back at Hermione with a shake of the head.

"I really don't think that the twins are up to defusing this situation and before you say it I've already flooed Ron at his office and his secretary said he was out on a recruitment assignment."

I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling and heaved a worried sigh for my present day husband.

"I hate it when they call it that, he always comes back in a state when he's on _recruitment assignments_," I said sarcastically as I knew that somebody was out there right now attempting to evade capture by firing curses at my husband, "Right ok then Percy I'm coming now, get your head out of the fire and tell him to calm down."

Percy snorted.

"Of course why didn't I think of that?"

As his head disappeared from the green flames and the fire returned to normal I asked one of the distraught house elves to scourgify my arms and finish helping Paula with her hair.

"You can't leave me with them!" she had whimpered desperately, "They're the ones who did this in the first place, are you mad?"

"Listen I explained to you when you applied for this job that you will suffer the odd little catastrophe and I also warned you that in the event of a family emergency you are expected to hold the fort while I take care of it now pull yourself together Paula and remember that you are helping us build a better future for magical folk everywhere."

While Paula began to rant about the pointlessness of a rousing speech when her head was being encased inside a huge purple crystal I tossed a handful of floo powder into the fire and called out my destination.

"Flat three, Appleford court!"

I spun around and stumbled out from the fireplace and into Percy's flat before I was really ready to arrive there. As I staggered into Percy, who caught me and kept hold of me until I was steady, he began to apologise.

"...should have warned you, I have a faster connection on the floo network now, are you alright?" he was lisping again.

I looked up and noticed that his lip was bleeding heavily and one of his front teeth was missing.

"Oh Percy he didn't?" I gasped as I pulled a tissue out from my pocket and tried to clean up his battered face.

"Never mind that, I can't bump into a travelling version of him these days without getting punched in the face, just go and calm him down will you?" Percy shrugged off my fussing and nodded to his closed bedroom door where something was being smashed.

We both flinched at the sound of breaking glass and I bit my bottom lip.

"You didn't have anything valuable in there did you?" I asked him.

"Not anymore no."

I took a deep breath and marched over to the door, flinging it open and stepping into Percy's bedroom to find an eighteen year old Ron, wearing a pair of Percy's trousers and a black shirt with white pinstripes that wasn't buttoned up, hurling an ornate picture frame across the room and shattering it on the writing desk by the window.

"Ron stop it now!" I ordered.

He looked at me with an expression of outraged shock on his face and grabbed another picture frame from the shelf beside him and stomped over to me with wild and slightly unfocused eyes, shaking it beneath my nose as he yelled at me.

"Family photographs! Can you believe that hypocritical prick Hermione? He's got family photographs in his bedroom when he's treated us like scum for the last couple of years."

I tried to take the frame from him before he turned and roared out of the door at Percy who was sitting with his head in his hands in the living room.

"Fucking scum!"

He threw the frame over my head and towards Percy where it smashed into the lamp just beside his head, breaking both items with an explosion of glass, and I shoved him backwards and closed the door behind me.

"Listen to me Ron and I mean _listen don't rant_," I hated it when I had to talk to him like this but there was something very volatile about him right now and I was beginning to see what it was and I hated it, "You're drunk aren't you?"

Ron threw his hands up into the air and he stomped over to the bed, sitting down on it heavily, where he began to talk animatedly at me or to himself. I never could tell when he was like this.

"It's always that isn't it?" he practically spat the words, "It's never anybody else's fault, nobody's ever in the wrong, it's never Percy's fault it's always _Ron's_ fault!_ Ron's _taking his clothes off in public and he doesn't remember why, _Ron's_ blacking out left right and centre. Percy's shitting on the family name from a great height while kissing the minister of magic's arse and _Ron's_ the bloody arsehole!"

I swallowed, Ron didn't know what was happening to him, this must have been where he travelled to when he took one of his very first trips and didn't remember afterwards. This must be the night he went out drinking with Charlie.

"Listen Ron," I began as I moved over to the bed to try and reassure him but he jumped back up to his feet with so much momentum that he almost fell over and I hopped backwards out of his way.

"No! I will not listen I..." he wobbled a little before falling to his knees, "...feel sick."

He was about to disappear again, turning up back home to blunder into the flat completely naked and with no memory of this night except for the dreadful hangover he suffered the following day, and I crouched down and lifted his chin with my hand and looked into his bloodshot eyes.

"You live at flat number fourMornington CresentRon, go straight home ok, it's cold out and you're going to be naked again."

As he blinked back at me without comprehension I felt his soft youthful skin dissolving away under my touch and within a second all that remained of his visit, apart from Percy's broken possessions and missing tooth, was the pile of warm clothing nestling crumpled before me. I picked up the shirt and brought it up to my face, inhaling his smell deeply, and wondered if my own Ron was doing ok wherever or whenever he was.

"Is he gone?" Percy's lisping voice asked as his head peered around the door, I nodded, "Well do you think maybe you could fix my mouth before you go back to work, I'd do it myself except I'm not sure I can pronounce the incantation properly like this."

I got to my feet and smiled at my, so often, bloodied brother-in-law.

"It must hurt," I said as I put the clothes Ron had been wearing on Percy's bed and followed him out to the kitchen where the light was better for me to see the damage properly.

"Just a bit," Percy snorted as he sat down and wiped his still bleeding lip.

"Not that," I sighed, "I mean Ron, when he comes here and still hates you, it must hurt."

Percy looks down at his lap and whispers, so softly that I can barely hear him.

"I deserve it."

I rub his arm and try to give him a reassuring smile.

"Nonsense, you were young and you had misguided loyalties, you were the same age as the Ron that just left and look at the kind of irrational prat he was!"

Percy laughed at this; it had been pointed out to me a lot more often ever since we were married but now I could hear it in myself as I spoke, I sounded just like Ron. I even swore more than I used to despite all my best efforts, he found that so amusing.

"I wasn't talking about my youthful naivety Hermione, I was talking about how I reacted the first time he ever came to me. I deserve it for that. I was old enough to know better by then wasn't I?"

I gave Percy a hug, not really bothered about getting his blood on my clothing seeing as I had to throw away my entire outfit now that the solid purple crystal that was splashed all over it was starting to eat through the fabric.

_Oh Merlin I hope they've got it all off poor Paula's hair!_

"Seriously Percy, what were you supposed to think when he turned up like that, and after all the times he had beaten you up and hurled abuse at you before, of course you would think it was a prank Fred and George were playing on you. I always tried to convince him to send you an owl and let you know about his condition but he was so stubborn back then."

"Back then?" Percy scoffed with his eyebrows raised above the rims of his glasses.

"Good point," I shrugged as I flicked my wand at Percy's lip and healed it non-verbally before sighing, "recruitment assignment, that's what they said when you asked for him wasn't it?"

Percy took my hand and nodded.

"He'll be fine."

I swallowed before looking him in the eye.

"What, like last time?"

* * *

_8th January 2023 and 11th February 2000 (Ron is 42)_

RON: I am running my third lap around the park when I see him. I catch my breath and pull my wand out from my pocket and aim it at his back.

_"Obtineo!"_

The spell holds him and I run to the spot he had been failing to conceal himself in the bushes, keeping my wand on him the whole time.

"You're getting very careless in your old age mate," I say as he stares at me with narrowed eyes.

"I'm not your mate Weasley," he snarled.

"No," I nod as I take in his slender frame and the scars and wrinkles that ravage his once familiar face, "not for a long time now."

"Have you see her yet?" he asks me, for a moment he almost seems human.

I shake my head and adjust the spell just enough to let him stand up and face me.

"It still hasn't happened, I'm beginning to think that maybe you're full of shit."

He smiles at me bitterly and looks back up at my flat, the place he had been watching not so stealthily, with an arrogance that I know so well now but never would have recognised back when we shared a dormitory at school.

"You'll be there don't you worry about that. I just thought I'd come and see if you could give me any answers or excuses or, I don't know, maybe a reason for it all. We both know it's got to happen soon don't we? How old are you now?"

I know exactly what he's getting at.

"Forty three in March isn't it?" he says smugly, "Found anybody who's seen you at forty four yet?"

I say nothing, just concentrate on holding my wand on him.

"Forty five, fifty, sixty? Still not found anybody who's seen you as an old man? Speaks volumes doesn't it?"

I know I've got him. He's desperate to get just one thing over on me and I decide to let him have it. I let him think he's won in the long run. After all this time and all this pain and especially after all the pointless blame I just can't be bothered to fight for the last word.

"Ron!" I hear Hermione screaming down at me from our living room window, she's obviously just looked out to see if I was on my way back yet and spotted the two of us, "Don't let him escape again, I'll call Eldridge and the Aurors, hold on!"

I never looked away from his face, or he from mine, and we smile at each other.

"It's over then," he says with a halfhearted shrug.

"Yeah," I nod.

"I gave you the run-around didn't I?" he smirked.

"Yes you were very impressive," I say honestly, I really never would have thought he had it in him to elude capture for twenty two years, "it's just a shame you put all that talent to waste trying to kill me for something I still haven't done."

He looked away from me and ran his hand, roughened by the years of hard living and rough fighting, through his short dark hair. It was peppered with more grey than mine, maybe you can't tell grey against red as much, and he'd obviously taken the years harder than I had.

"The clock is always ticking though isn't it Weasley? Time's almost up and it's only a matter of time before you go to her, watch her die, and do absolutely nothing to stop it when you know you can. I don't care what you say, I know you can stop it if you really tried."

I heave a deep sigh and try to resist getting into this same old argument again. It gets neither of us anywhere and it just makes him hate me more for making excuses.

"What if it worked?" I ventured after a moment of tense silence, "What if I could stop it and she didn't die that day. Who's to say she wouldn't have died the day after instead?"

"Anything to wriggle out of your part in it eh Weasley?" he scowled while I heard the cracks of apparition sounding across the road, just outside my flat, followed by the sound of Hermione's voice directing the Aurors to where we stood behind the bushes.

"I have a family y'know?" I say quietly to him as the footsteps approach.

"What's that got to do with anything?" he snaps with genuine malice at the thought of me rubbing in the fact that I have the kind of life he never could let himself live.

"You're so sure I'll be dead before forty four, don't you think if I could do anything to stop that and stay with them I would?"

He blinked at me, his eyes briefly darting over my shoulder to see the team coming to arrest him, and folded his arms across his narrow chest.

"Maybe you just haven't had the opportunity to do it yet, just like you haven't had the opportunity to save _her_ yet either."

Cavendish hit him with a powerful restraining hex and Davis gave me a pat on the shoulder to let me know I could lower my own wand now.

"Nice one Agent Weasley, it took ya long enough!"

"Give the guy a break and read this backstabbing shit his rights Bev," I put my wand away and took a step back while the two Aurors tried not to enjoy being rough with him during their formal arrest procedure.

"Do you remember I told you that as soon as I saw something in the future there was nothing I could do to stop it or change it because it had already happened and become my past?" I said to him as Davis stopped in the middle of her celebratory banter with Cavendish and stared at me in confusion.

He nodded at me.

"But you haven't seen her yet so it hasn't happened for you has it? Not like it's happened for me."

"I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about that other life you reckon I should be able to save," both Aurors were deathly silent now as they listened as intently as their prisoner was doing, "I've already seen that, there's no changing it, I've tried everything."

Cavendish shook himself out of his state of distraction and hauled the bane of my career and the greatest pain of my life away to be tried and sent to Azkaban while he stared back at me with the hate finally leaving his face for the first time in decades.

"Your poor girls Weasley."

He stared at me as he was dragged across to the prisoner transportation portkey, never breaking his gaze or saying another word, and I watched the three of them go. The remaining Auror squad were doing clean up, modifying some muggle memories and Eldridge was reassuring a fretful Hermione as she stood at our front door step and struggled to shake him off and run to check that I was alright. I saw my old friend in the distance going about his duties on the perimeter, Eldridge had obviously ordered him to keep his distance from the arrest as he was too close to the whole thing, and he nodded and smiled at me. We'd finally done it, we'd got him, it was all over.

I put my wand away and heaved a sigh as I walked around the hedge and tried to beam Hermione a reassuring smile as I waved to her from across the street and quickly looked both ways for oncoming cars before crossing to report to Eldridge. I think it was the sudden turn of the head that did it, the blur of the neon shop front that caught my eye or the sun reflecting off of the multiple windows of a passing bus, anyway something bright flickered rapidly and I felt it hitting me. Even though I'd just been running, which usually helps hold off the episodes, I hadn't warmed down and then I'd gone directly into a stressful situation before the flashing lights tipped me over the edge.

They were running to get to me from all sides, I could hear them but I couldn't see them anymore, my vision had become hazy and I was on my knees before I knew it. I closed my eyes to try and stop the head rush and something spun me around because the next thing I knew I was shivering on a frozen street in the dark with not a stitch on me.

I tried to get to my feet but the ice was slick and I slipped and cracked my head on something metal. That was when everything went black.

A chill rippled along my back and I felt the first of a thousand fat flakes of snow stroking their icy caress upon my pale, goose pimpled skin. I was numb and cold and couldn't feel my feet anymore. I tried to sit up but my head pounded and I lifted my unnaturally white hands up to my face and felt something warm and sticky oozing out of a deep gash on my forehead.

"Where the hell am I?" I shuddered, a cloud of steam shooting from my chapped lips.

I reached up above me and got as good a grip on a windowsill as I could manage before pulling myself up and struggling to manoeuvre my feet beneath me so I could stand. I looked down at my feet, I couldn't feel them at all, they were still there though, very pale and very heavy but there all the same. I tried to walk but I found it almost impossible to lift them, they were like solid blocks of stone hanging beneath my ankles, and moved along the street by half dragging and half sliding them along the icy road surface beneath them.

I was heading for a lamppost so I could get some light and try to see when I had ended up. I could only go to places I had already been in my life at some point so there had to be something I recognised here, there had to be.

The snow kept falling and I gradually dragged my feet to the junction and saw the little square outside Percy's place, I had travelled to Appleford village. I wondered what year it was and hoped that one of my younger versions hadn't just beaten the crap out of my brother, rendering him physically unable to help me.

I reached the door to his block of flats and pressed the buzzer for flat number three.

_Please be home, please be home, please be home..._

"'Ershy Weesey, what time d'you call this?" Percy's sleepy voice mumbled from the speaker beside my head.

"Percy help me," was all I could get out before shivering violently as another gust of cutting wind seemed to slice right through me.

I heard my brother clearing his throat in order to wake himself up a little more.

"What? Who is this?"

"R-Ron, Percy you've got to let me in."

"Ron? Are you drunk again? On your way home from the pub and looking for somebody to punch is that it?" his clipped tones told me everything I needed to know.

I was in the late nineties and Percy didn't know about the travelling.

"P-Perce, you've got to floo Hermione for me please," I stammered before losing my footing and sliding with a thump down onto his doorstep.

"I will not waste good floo powder asking your girlfriend to come and pick up my intoxicated brother thank you very much. You managed to apparate here, why don't you try Fred and George's place?"

I banged my numb fist against the locked front door and tried to shout up to the speaker from my spot on the ground.

"I need to get to St Mungo's! Please Percy help me."

"St Mungo's is it? Another one of yours and the twins' oh-so-funny pranks at my expense? Why don't the three of you grow up and leave me alone?"

I couldn't speak anymore, I was too cold and too tired, and I just willed myself to travel back home to my wife and my friends. Willed myself to go home again. Willed myself off of this frozen doorstep. I felt myself drifting away into sleep and curled up as best I could for warmth.

"Oh Godric," somebody shouted as I was kicked awake by somebody falling over me as they tried to leave the fats in the morning light, "Mr Richardson quickly floo St Mungo's and get somebody here now!"

It was Percy's voice, he sounded scared.

"Mr Weasley?" said a befuddled sounding old man from somewhere in the distance.

"It's my brother, get on the floo network and bring me a medi wizard please!"

I felt a warm cloak being draped over my naked body and hands rubbing up and down my arms roughly.

"I'm sorry Ron, I'm so sorry I thought you were messing around again, please say something to me...please."

I could do nothing else but shiver and my eyes felt as if they were frozen shut.

Percy sounded as if he was crying now.

"Floo my mother! The Burrow, you've got to get my mum here."

There were footsteps running towards him now and Percy was trying to compose himself and explain all that he knew while I felt myself sinking away from it all. I melted away from the cloak, the ice, the doorway: everything. Then I heard screaming.

"He's here, get the medi wizards, and get me a blanket he's freezing! Oh Ron please don't leave me, you promised me you would never leave me, come on sweetheart say something to me."

I used everything I had to force my eyes open and look at her, my panic-stricken wife, and tell her what she needed to know before passing out again.

"Not g-going anywhere just y-yet...not time y-yet."

* * *

_A/N Thanking you all for the positive reviews and hoping to give you a little pattern to follow to help you kee track of all these time jumps in the narrative._

_I will be telling the main part of the story during 1998 and 1999, these years will be covered over the next ten chapters of so consecutively so you get some kind of traditional narrative to follow. Every other chapter will be one set in the future of way back in the past._

_This is a future jump so the next chapter will be set in the present where Ron and Hermione are still getting used to Ron's condition. I hope that makes it a little easier to keep track of the dates for you._

_Shari_


	6. Fill Her Up

**Fill Her Up**

_23rd June 1998 (Ron is 18)_

RON: I was dusting between the gaps in all of my built up paperwork with the feather of my quill, a most bored look on my face, when I noticed Harry, Neville and Seamus standing in my open doorway grinning at me.

"How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to wonder what the hell they're paying you for Weasley!" Neville chuckled.

"Who are you calling Weasley? I don't go around calling you Longbottom do I?"

"Well it's either that or Mr Weasley and I'm sorry Ron but I just can bring myself to do it," Neville said with an apologetic shake of the head.

I knew what he meant actually. I had been leaving the ministry one day last week and a pair of lost children who had escaped from the nursery were fighting over which one of them asked 'that man' which way they needed to go to find their mummy's office. I looked over my shoulder for 'that man' for a good thirty seconds or so before realising that they had been talking about me. When did I become 'that man'? I didn't notice it happening and, quite frankly, I didn't like it one bit.

"Seriously mate you look so bored it's like I'm staring at you in history of magic class at school," Seamus smirked as he leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms.

"Stared at me a lot back then did you?" I said with a artfully arched eyebrow to let him know that he'd just made a very strange statement indeed.

"You're funny, I suppose you have time to think of all those funny things to say while you're sitting around not working all day," he huffed.

"I can't help it if it's a slow day can I?" I snapped, sitting back in my chair.

Harry wandered across to my desk and thumbed through the pile of paperwork filling my in tray.

"Seems like this needs doing rather than dusting to me Ron."

I scowled at him.

"Aren't you supposed to be on an assignment all this week?"

"Cancelled, Shaklebolt got called in to oversee an internal arrest, apparently one of the Aurors was on the take so we've been buddied-up with Aurors to observe the day to day process of Auror life," Harry explained.

"Yeah," Seamus snorted, "when Neville and I found him he was filing case notes into alphabetical order."

I cackled at that and Harry glared at Seamus and Neville who didn't even attempt to hide their amusement from him.

"And you dare to mock my glamorous occupation?" I said before clearing my throat and looking down at the transfer request I was supposed to be filling in as my secretary Melanie walked in between Seamus and Neville and smiled seductively at Harry before glaring at me.

"Mr Weasley have you finished it yet?" she said coldly.

I signed the bottom of the parchment and handed it over to her.

"There you go, sorry it didn't work out."

She huffed and stormed back out again, I saw her grabbing her coat and several things from her desk before walking out and slamming the door behind her. All four of us flinched and Harry looked down at me with wide eyes.

"You didn't just sack her did you? I liked her."

"You just liked her because she flirted with you every time you came round," Seamus chuckled.

"I didn't sack her, she asked to go to another department," I said, defensively, she had been my third secretary in as many weeks.

"Another one?" Neville groaned.

I shrugged and slumped down in my seat.

"Sick of walking in and finding me naked," I said it in a dreadful imitation of her voice before snapping with frustration, "I'm not sick of always being naked in the middle of work?"

Harry gave me a pitying look before casting his gaze around the office.

"You got rid of anything that could set you off though didn't you?" I nodded, "And you can't be getting stressed in the job, blimey I'm amazed you can stay awake."

"What was that filing-boy? Do_ you _want to come and be my secretary?"

Seamus looked at his watch and clapped his hands together.

"Right working day is done Weasley, I'm taking you for a drink come on."

I looked around at the mess I still had to work through and began to reluctantly decline before Harry grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me out of my chair and around the desk.

"Come on mate, the hectic workload of the world of Auror recruitment can wait until tomorrow can't it?"

"See the thing is I really do need to replace whatshername, now that all that McKenna business..." I stopped myself before I blew my cover, Harry had noticed my slip-up, "...what I mean to say is that now Shaklebolt's put away that crooked Auror I've got to look into replacing him haven't I?"

I held my breath and hoped that I'd done a good enough job of it. Seamus and Neville seemed convinced.

"Yeah well, I've hardly seen anything of you outside this place and your flat since you were diagnosed Ron and you can't stop your social life just because of a little thing like this," Harry said as he pulled me over to the cloak stand and threw my jacket into my face.

"Did he just call it a little thing?" I asked Neville, "Did I hear that right?"

Neville shoved me out the door and Seamus followed on behind while they accused me of making mountains out of mole hills.

We had been in the pub for three hours now and I was definitely more relaxed about everything.

"...'cause it's, it's not," I failed to stifle a burp before continuing with my fragmented sentence, "it's not the end of the world is it Neville?"

Neville was shaking his head in response to my question but he didn't seem able to stop.

"It's not. This is not going to ruin your life Ron and you are not going to disappear willy-nilly..."

Harry grimaced and covered his face with his hands.

"Don't talk about his willy nilly!" he groaned with disgust.

Seamus cackled and slapped Harry on the back.

"I'm with you pal," he said, "if I never see his willy nilly again for the rest of my life I'd still have seen too much of it to last me ten lifetimes."

Neville seemed determined to make his reassuring point to me and shook my shoulders where he had his arms around them, to steady him or me I'm not quite sure, and soldiered on with a serious look on his face.

"You are going to settle into your nice relaxing job and there'll be no stress and you've got your lovely girlfriend at home and there's no stress between you is there?"

Seamus almost fell off his stool on hearing that.

"Are you talking about Ron and Hermione here?" he exclaimed while Harry threw his head back and roared with laughter, spilling his firewhisky.

"Shhhh," Neville said, spattering me with spit in the process, "What I'm saying is, you can get a grip on this and beat this problem Ron. Hermione can find out what exactly it was that Dumbledore was doing to keep you anchored in the...the now..."

"It's the present Neville," I mumbled as he went on with his rousing speech.

" Then you can stop doing it and you can get back to normal and everything will be alright and nobody has to see you naked ever again."

Seamus slapped his thigh and Harry had tears in his eyes as they laughed so hard it looked as if it was painful.

"Not even Hermione!" Seamus managed to say, causing Harry to have to lean on the bar to hold himself up.

"I'm talking about people who don't like that kind of thing," Neville growled in frustration, before leaning in close to me and attempting to whisper, "because that time last week when I came home and you were there, that freaked me out."

Neville had a haunted look that I would occasionally see in the faces of veteran Aurors and I patted him on the back.

"I know man, I know," I couldn't stop myself from saying the first thing that came into my head, "just be thankful your gran wasn't visiting you that weekend."

Neville looked horrified and that just made me crumple into my own fit of laughter, which Neville soon fell victim to after his double firewhisky to recover from the image I had just planted in his head.

We had been laughing so hard that our faces ached and Harry and I walked along Diagon Alley after saying goodbye to Seamus and Neville when we left the pub, chattering about all my new relaxation techniques that hadn't worked over the last three months since my time epilepsy had returned.

"Y'see the thing is Harry," I mused as we wandered down the empty street and towards the Leaky Caldron, "I couldn't relax while I was worrying about not being able to relax and you can't just force relaxation of yourself can you?"

Harry shook his head and tapped the magical wall into the muggle world with his wand, nothing happened, he swore and tried again in a different order and still nothing, and turned to me with a frown.

"The wall's broken."

"Here let me," I said and I poked at the wall with my finger.

"I think it works better with a wand Ron."

I snorted.

"Oh yeah!"

Just at that moment the wall opened and I stared in awe at my finger for a moment before seeing that a patron of the Leaky Caldron coming through from the muggle side had activated it from there. I felt slightly disappointed.

"See why can't I have a magical finger instead of magical epilepsy?" I grumbled as we stepped through the wall, which closed up behind us.

"Life's like that isn't it?"

"You know," I began and didn't continue the sentence until we were already halfway down the muggle street we had staggered onto in total silence, "I was really worried about coming out tonight."

Harry slapped me on the back and I tried not to fall over.

"I know you were mate, I'm glad we convinced you 'cause I meant what I said Ron, I've missed having a laugh with you."

"Yeah we have had a laugh," I agreed as I leaned against a lamppost outside a public lavatory, "and I think it's done me good y'know 'cause I'm relaxed aren't I? Aren't I relaxed Harry?"

"If you were any more relaxed you would be laying down," Harry nodded.

"If this lamppost wasn't behind me I would be."

We grinned like idiots for a few seconds before I looked up at the few stars visible in the night sky from such a brightly lit city as London was. I longed for all the muggle electricity to fail one night so I could see the stars the way I could at the Burrow.

"I worry so much about staying relaxed that I never can," I said aloud to myself, Harry punched me in the shoulder in an effort to cheer me up, "Sorry, just ignore me. I'm enjoying the feeling that's all."

I smiled at my best friend and he seemed to be quite pleased that he'd found a way to help me unwind at last.

"Come on," I grunted as I pushed myself away from the lamp post and opened the door of the public lavatory, "let's go home."

I stepped into the ministry approved apparition point and took myself to the vandalised telephone box at the end of our street. As I fumbled for my keys on my way to the flat I heard a crack behind me and turned to see Harry stepping out of the phone box.

"Have I got something of yours?" I frowned, wondering why he had followed me.

"Nah," he grinned before stepping back inside the phone box, "just seeing that you got back ok, night Ron."

"Yeah, night," I waved as I dropped my keys on the pavement and bent over to pick them up while the sound of Harry disapparating echoed through the darkened street.

When I crept into the flat and kicked off my shoes I listened for Hermione and couldn't hear a thing. I figured she must have gone to bed ages ago. I pulled off my jacket and stripped to the waist before swaying into the bedroom and crashing out on top of the covers of the bed. I was almost asleep immediately but for a hand running up my back and fingers snaking in my hair.

"Did you have a good time?" I heard Hermione mumble into her pillow.

"Uh-huh," was all I could manage before drifting off until morning.

* * *

_August 10th 1998 (Ron and Hermione are 18)_

HERMIONE: I got the call at about eleven thirty. Ron was drunk again. He'd gone to the twin's place this time, not even able to make it to the Leaky Caldron to get a room for the night like he usually does when he gets himself in too much of a state, and they had flooed me to let me know he was alright and not to worry.

Not to worry, how ridiculous is that?

I had my coat on before the flames had even returned to their correct colour and flooed right into their living room.

"Oh no I'm in trouble now," Ron grinned stupidly when he saw me step out of the fireplace before scowling up at George and hissing, "You pair of dirty sneaks."

"Yeah, I'm actually over here Ron," Fred said with undisguised annoyance.

He looked an absolute mess, well he hadn't been looking good for a while now, and he stank of alcohol. He was slouched in one of the big leather armchairs by the fireplace and hauled himself out of it when he saw Fred's anger rising.

"You don't want me to stay, that's fine, I can go somewhere else."

George grabbed Ron and physically walked him over to the fireplace.

"You are going home and going to bed and we will be having serious words with you in the morning."

"Oh no," Ron snorted, "serious words! Is that even possible? Do you two do serious? Do serious for me now!"

I took one of his hands and his amused face looked away from his brothers to turn on me and fall into an expression of sullen boredom.

"Why are you even here?" he asked me with a roll of the eyes thrown in for good measure.

"I've come to take you home, come on."

He yanked his hand away from mine.

"You've come to take me home. Oh have you now? Have you come to take me home or have you in fact come to nag me?"

"Ron behave," Fred warned him, he really had lost his patience with him by this point and was barely keeping his voice down.

Ron rubbed his face tiredly and walked away from the three of us.

"Oh what is everybody's problem?"

"Our problem Ron," Fred barked, "is that we don't like watching you do this to yourself every bloody night."

"Don't watch me then!" Ron yelled, "Am I asking you to watch me? Am I asking any of you to watch me?"

Ron and I were on very thin ice at the moment, I was sick of fighting, and I was sick of hearing him apologising every morning and promising to stop and then getting a floo or an owl from somebody in the middle of the night asking me to come and get him. He was spending all his time at work and in the pub, I sometimes felt as if he only came back to the flat for somewhere to throw up.

This was getting to be too much now though, he wasn't my Ron anymore, he wasn't anybody's Ron. He was a spiteful and volatile drunk who was breaking my heart little by little and I couldn't let him do it anymore.

"Ron I understand what you've been going through but this is not the way to deal with it ok?" I tried to reason with him.

"You understand?" he looked at me as if I was crazy, "You understand nothing. How do you understand?"

"I understand that you think drinking is the only way to keep you in the present Ron and it's not."

"You know what? It isn't perfect, I never said it was perfect but it works Hermione, I haven't travelled in almost two months, it's working."

"At your expense Ron," George said, folding his arms and daring his little brother to argue with that.

"Money isn't everything," he shrugged with that egregious grin plastered all over his face.

Fred snapped and stormed across the room to growl at him

"At the expense of you becoming an arsehole!"

Ron moved forward and fixed Fred's glare with one of equal ferocity.

"Takes one to know one."

Fred was about to punch Ron's lights out when George grabbed his arm as it flew back and pulled him away.

"Leave it Fred, that's not going to help anyone is it?"

I rushed past the twins and shoved Ron into the wall behind him and spoke in a level but firm tone.

"You think that because you haven't travelled in all this time you've been drinking that it's a permanent solution do you? Well do you?"

"I'm not an idiot," Ron mimicked my calm speech as he lowered his head to answer right into my face.

"You could've fooled me," Fred called over from the spot where George was still trying to keep him a fair distance away.

"Well why are you doing it then?" I asked him, pulling back from the foul scent of his breath as I did.

"I've been waiting for _you_," he said as he pushed himself away from the wall and stomped over to the window while doing his hurtful impersonation of my voice, "I can recreate Dumbledore's spell in no time, with all the facilities at my disposal at work we can create whole new strains of magical suppressants, I can anchor you in time before the month's out you'll see...I'm still waiting Hermione. Where's this sodding cure you told me was going to be so bloody easy to come up with?"

"Ron lay off now!" George warned while shoving a livid Fred down into an armchair.

He was right, that's what hurt so much, I had promised him I could do it as soon as I heard about Dumbledore's spell. I had sworn to him that I wouldn't rest until I could recreate the Tempus stabiliser spell and that was six months ago now. I work on it in my spare time and I take time at work when I shouldn't do to try and come up with any new angle I hadn't thought of but there are other things I am committed to at work. I have deadlines to meet and a boss to keep on the good side of. I've read everything I could think of to read and I've researched every avenue until I get to a dead end and nothing helps.

There's nothing I can do for him and he knows it.

"Drinking is not a cure Ron," I said as I struggled to hold on to my emotions.

He looked back at me from the window and seemed to stare right through me in that same devastating way he did when he wasn't talking to me during our third year at Hogwarts.

"It's all I've got."

I stormed over to him undecided as to what I would rather do, hug him and never let him go or push him out the window in fury. I stopped just short of touching him and stared up into his face.

"You've got me."

He leaned forward and whispered his awful words into my ear, with something bordering shame and spite.

"You see the thing is I happen to know that this time next year I don't have you," my stomach flipped over and I felt like screaming, "you get sick of me. I've got nobody."

Before I could shake the knot out of my throat he had pushed past me and stormed out of the door, Fred and George running in hot pursuit, while I put my hands to my face and tried to hold myself together.

He was wrong, it was a mistake; I would never leave him because of his time travelling. How could he think that? What on earth could he have seen to make him think such a thing?

There was the sound of a door slamming downstairs and moments later George walked back into the flat with his head hanging low. He looked up at me and rushed over to give me a hug, I broke down and cried onto his shoulder while wondering where Fred was.

And Ron, I wondered what on earth was happening to my Ron.

RON: She had to know. I had to tell her. I know that there was that future where we were getting married and where I…we…well anyway I know that I saw that as well as everything else but I couldn't wait around for her to up and leave me. It's best that we end it now. Maybe I can change the future if I try. Maybe I can make her life better by removing myself from it before schedule.

"Have you eaten?" the barmaid asked me.

I had just stormed into the first place that I knew of in the muggle world that took wizard money and ordered a whisky before downing it and resting my elbow on the bar and my chin in my hand. I nodded to the raven-haired barmaid, she looked exotic, like an Egyptian princess or something, but her accent gave away that she was in fact from Liverpool. I had learned in my three months of heavy drinking that if, towards the end of the night, a member of the bar staff asked you if you had eaten they were just making sure you could handle the hard stuff they kept out of sight. If ever I was asked if I'd eaten by a barmaid or barman I would always say yes whether I had or not. Tonight I hadn't.

"Why?"

"Well I just got some good stuff in, fermented in Icelandic stills by Nordic Druids, seventy percent proof."

I wondered if she was being straight with me. I may have been blitzed but I was pretty sure that you found Nordic druids in Norway and not Iceland but you never know, they might get around while distilling their seventy percent proof alcohol.

"Go on then, make it a double."

HERMIONE: I've been waiting with Fred, George, Harry and Ron's parents for an hour now.

Both Ron and I carry a card with my parents' address and telephone number on it just in case we have an accident in the muggle world and an owl flew in through Fred and George's window just after Fred came back home telling us he hadn't been able to find Ron in any local bars anywhere. The note was from my father telling me that a muggle hospital in Liverpool had contacted him and informed him that Ron had just been admitted with alcohol poisoning.

We were all waiting in complete silence. Ginny was taking a breather from the tense atmosphere in the waiting room. She and Harry had fallen into quite a nasty argument just after the first doctor had come out to speak to Mr and Mrs Weasley and tried to explain to them what exactly a stomach pump was and why they were using one on their son. Harry had mumbled something about blaming himself and Ginny snapped that she wholeheartedly agreed with him. She had ranted and screamed at him that it had been his idea to take Ron drinking to dull his anxiety and that if he wanted pity he should go and find one of his female fans to give it to him.

We'd seen three different doctors so far, they all kept saying that Ron was stable but none of us felt any better.

I just want him back the way he was, in all his inappropriately naked glory. It turns out that there is something worse than watching somebody you love fade away before your very eyes to go time travelling Godric knows where or when and that's watching somebody you love simply fading away.


	7. Mummy's Boy

**Mummy's Boy**

_13th April 2034 (Ron is 21, Hermione is 54)_

RON: I had travelled to the flat only to find it empty.

No people, no furniture, no pictures hanging on the walls but there was food in the cupboards. It was all long life non-perishable muggle food and when I wandered into the bedroom there were several plastic bags full of neatly folded clothes and row upon row of different pairs of shoes for all weather. I went into the bathroom and saw soap, shaving equipment and thankfully a full roll of toilet paper. Stuck on the bathroom mirror was a note.

_Ron, _

_This isn't home anymore, you can floo to Gorecki and find me or go to the Burrow or the twins place, they still live in Diagon Alley, their place is much bigger now what with all the kids._

_Please come and find me though, or send an owl and I'll come to you ok?_

_Looking forward to seeing you sweetheart,_

_Hermione._

I frowned, Hermione never called me sweetheart, before getting dressed and making something called instant noodles that burned my mouth and tasted like feet. I pulled out a scrap of paper and wrote myself a note, which I stuck on the small collection of instant noodles in the kitchen cupboard.

_Dear Ron,_

_Don't eat these, they're vile!_

_Love Ron (kiss kiss)_

I grabbed a handful of floo powder from above the fireplace and sent myself away to Gorecki, which I really hoped I had pronounced correctly, and stumbled out of the green flames and onto an oriental-looking rug in a cosy little living room. I smiled, now this felt like home.

There were photographs of Hermione and me and the rest of the family all over the place. There were also lots of pictures of little red haired children growing up from babies to adults. The only one I recognised was Cam, Bill and Fleur's boy, the only blonde in the bunch other than his own son but the one cursed with the most freckles too. He grew up to be a quiddich captain I see from one of the photographs.

"Well look at you," I heard a breathy whisper from somewhere behind me.

I turned and saw Hermione standing in the doorway, her hair tied into a loose French plait and her sleeves rolled up to the elbow with mud covering her hands.

"I've been making pots in the conservatory," she explained when she saw me looking at her hands.

"Oh its clay?" I smiled, "I thought you'd gone nuts and started making mud pies in the back garden or something."

She smiled and shook her head again, she was looking at me in a really strange way and I couldn't make out why that was.

"Look at you," she sighed again.

"You said that," I frowned.

I saw that she was about the same age as my mum was to me back in 2001 and looked at her flecks of grey and the lines around her eyes and her mouth. She went out a little more than I remember ever seeing before, other than when I saw her pregnant of course, but she still went in like she always had done too. Her eyes were so warm and the sun bounced off her hair making it light up like treacle.

"Do you ever stop getting more beautiful?" I asked her before I realised I was saying the words out loud.

She crossed the room with a grin that made her skin seem to glow from within and threw her clay-covered arms around me.

"Hello Ron."

"Hi Hermione."

She moved back from me and looked up into my face, beginning to giggle like a little girl.

"How old are you?"

"I'm of age don't worry grandma!" I teased.

Her eyes went wide and she shoved me in the chest with both hands, leaving two brown handprints on my sweatshirt.

"Cheeky sod!" she tried to look offended but she couldn't wipe the smile from her lips as she did, "and now look what you made me do. Come to the bedroom, you've got a wardrobe full of things in there."

HERMIONE: He's here, he's really here, I had worried that he would be angry with me for abandoning the flat and moving away but he seems to quite like the new place. Well it's new to him at least. I smile as I watch him pulling off his sweatshirt and dropping it to the floor, one thing about young Ron I never miss is the picking up after him, before pulling on a deep red t-shirt.

I marvel at how thin he used to be in his youth. Was I really ever with somebody that young? Of course I was, I was that young at the time as well, but I can't quite get over how incredibly youthful he looks. His adult muscle-tone is definitely beginning to show but there's something else about him that makes me feel as if I'm looking at an old picture of him from school. He doesn't look like he does in my memories of watching him dressing.

Then I understand what it is, his torso isn't scarred the way it will be, his bones haven't had to be healed repeatedly and I doubt if he's even fallen out of the sky yet. No wonder he looks so happy, he doesn't know what's coming.

"What are you so sad about?" he frowns as he crosses the room to stand in front of me.

He's so close I could kiss him. I could and want to throw my husband down onto our bed and ravage him. The thing is my husband isn't my husband yet and I am now an old woman. He would probably be sick if I even suggested it. I have to treat him differently but still be warm and loving so he doesn't feel out of place as well as out of time. I told myself to pretend that he's Percy's oldest boy Bobby, he's the spitting image of Ron, so much so that when he passed his apparition test and went straight to the Burrow to tell his grandmother she greeted him with the words 'Ronnie dear, when are you coming from?'.

"Hermione?" Ron was waving his hand in front of my face.

"Sorry, I was miles away," I wondered if I was blushing, I haven't blushed in years.

"I didn't come all this way just for you to drift off somewhere else," he said with a tut.

"Come on, let me get cleaned up and I'll take you out to get something to eat."

RON: Take me to get something to eat. She'll do anything rather than cook that woman. I took her hand as we walked out of Gorecki cottage, I reminded myself to ask her what on earth that meant later on, and down the quiet lane toward the sea front.

"We live by the ocean?" I say, delighted at this news.

"Yes we do," she smiles that weird smile again.

I watch her as she looks down at our hands and squeezes slightly before looking ahead to the crashing waves and shaking her head with a soft laugh.

"What?" I frown.

"It's nothing," she grinned, "it's just your timing. Your timing is, as ever, impeccable. You got here just as I was beginning to pine for you."

I understood now.

"Ah right, is my other self travelling then?"

She nodded and squeezed my hand again.

"He's been gone too long for my liking Ron."

That's started to happen to me too. I've been going away from my present for a few minutes and come back to find I've missed the whole weekend and have to go straight back in to work. I don't tend to like Mondays in general but Mondays like those are twice as bad.

I put my arm around her and give her a smile to try and keep her spirits up.

"Well I'll keep you company until he gets back then."

I feel her arm curl around my waist as we reach the beach and begin to stroll along the beach toward the pier a little way away.

HERMIONE: Well there it is, I just got my first outraged glare from a local busy body. There's that old strumpet corrupting a poor innocent boy, she should be ashamed of herself. I don't think Ron's noticed. In all honesty I don't think he's noticed that I'm as old as I am. If he has he's doing a very good job of hiding it. I really want to kiss my husband.

"Ron?" I almost breathe the word at him rather than speak it and he turns to look down at me with a smile.

"What's up babe?"

He's still calling me babe. I laugh out loud at this and shake my head, trying to get that silly little giddy feeling I used to get as a girl out of it and come back to my senses.

"You're making me feel like such a grown-up!" I laugh.

He looks mortified at this.

"Well we can't have that!"

He grabs me and throws me over his shoulder, carrying me towards the sea. I begin to scream and laugh at the same time.

"Ronald Weasley I'm a dignified older woman and dignified older women don't get thrown into the sea fully clothed!"

"Where did you read that?" I heard him laughing, "The dignified women's handbook."

We reach the spot where the waves just barely manage to crawl to before falling back into themselves and he puts me back down gently. He looks incredibly amused and I want to kiss him so badly that I have to scream inside my own head.

_He looks just like your nephew that's disgusting. Stop this now!_

He's moving in to me and I give him a playful peck on the cheek and ruffle his hair like the patronising auntie I now am. He seems a little thrown by this and watches me walk on ahead of him for several paces with a frown on his face before jogging to catch me up.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked.

"No of course I'm not," I didn't mean to confuse him, I'm doing a good enough job of confusing myself right now, "I'm just feeling old in your company that's all."

"Well you don't look old," he shrugged.

I snorted at this blatant lie.

"You don't!" he said again with incredulity, "You've matured...like a good cheese."

"Oh well that's what every woman wants isn't it? To be compared to cheese!"

He was laughing again now.

"What's wrong with that? I like cheese."

RON: I think I'm getting this now. She's feeling weird about the age difference. I wonder if I should point out the fact that her being older than me didn't bother her half as much when she was stealing my innocence away from me.

"When was the last time my other self, your Ron I mean, did something silly with you?"

She stopped in her tracks and stared up at me blankly.

"What do you mean silly?" she said after a considerable period of hesitation.

"I mean as opposed to sensible. When did you last do something silly just for the sake of being silly?"

She thought about this for a few steps before looking to me and saying, in all seriousness, that she once tried to make a long thin clay pot in her studio and it went a bit wrong and turned out like part of a gentleman's anatomy and she laughed about it for the rest of the day and even fired and glazed it and sent it to Ginny as a joke.

She smiled at me, slightly proud of herself, and waited for my comment on her anarchy.

"That's it?"

"Well I thought it was funny and you can't argue that it was very childish too."

"Yeah but I know the kind of child you were," I shorted, "you would have rolled your eyes and gone back to your reading material if somebody had been behaving that way."

"Oh Godric was I really such a bore back then?" she whimpered as she leaned on me and I put my arm around her shoulder to comfort her.

"You weren't a bore babe, you were unique, you were the ying to my yang."

"It's yin Ron," she said with a sigh, "and since when did you get all karmic?"

Since when? Well let's see, maybe since what goes around came around and around and around several times more for me.

"Well it's all about do unto others as you would have done to yourself ain't it?" I began to explain to her.

She nodded and waited for me to make my inevitable joke.

"But the thing with me is, I tend to _have_ to do unto myself as I'd have done to me because if I don't I'd bleed to death or freeze or get the crud kicked out of me for being starkers in the Leaky Caldron on a Friday night."

She looked sad upon hearing this and I suddenly realised that I was speaking to her on a whole other level than I would speak to my Hermione. I could tell this Hermione anything because she was older and wiser and less likely to hit me.

"Did you know that I once had to give myself the Heimlich manoeuvre?" I asked her as if it was some lazy comment about finding a Knut in the street on the way home.

"No," she said, looking annoyed that there was something I had kept from her all these years, "what happened?"

What kind of stupid question is that?

"Oh it didn't work, I died," I shrugged.

She punched me in the arm, then the shoulder, then the arm and again and again until I ran out of her reach. So I was wrong, old Hermione's do hit after all.

"That's not funny Ron!" she screeched at me, "Why didn't you tell me that at the time?"

"Why didn't I tell you I was choking while I was choking?" I scoffed, attempting in my inept way to alleviate the tension.

"Don't be facetious Ronald," she snapped.

"I don't believe," I snapped before turning to walk up to the front of the pier," I do not believe that after all the years that have passed between us, that we still row like this!"

HERMIONE: As I watched him stomping off up the beach I realised that I wasn't seeing Percy's boy, I wasn't seeing a boyish version of the man I knew as my husband, I was seeing the man I loved and have always loved since I was too young to understand what I was feeling and I wanted to have him there and then on the sand.

"Ron wait!" I yelled out as I ran after him.

Running on sand is a lot tougher than all those old movies make it look.

"I didn't tell you for a fight Hermione, I wasn't looking for an argument, we don't play that game anymore. I wanted to tell you because I never did and I thought you'd understand," he said as he turned around and I clutched the stitch in my side and cursed that my plan of throwing myself upon him to stop him mid-sentence was ruined by my lack of physical fitness.

"I'm...sorry...didn't...want...to fight...with you," I panted while waddling in the most non-seductive manner the rest of the way over to him.

"Are you alright there babe? You look kind of purple," he said with concern.

I was still quite breathless, as I stood up straight and nodded.

"I don't tend...to run that much...these days."

He frowned at me before smiling a very little bit.

"Well if we have another argument I'll try to remember to crawl away in a huff rather than storm off ok?"

I laughed louder than I had done all year and soon the two of us were chortling like a pair of fools arm in arm up to the entrance of the pier.

RON: I would have liked to take Hermione on some of the rides but everything on the pier is closed at this time of year. I must stop time travelling to fun places out of season; it really is becoming annoying now.

There is a tiny cafe open though and if I can't buy her a stick of rock or some candy floss and a toffee apple then can at least buy her a cup of tea with three sugars.

We sit down in the empty cafe and I try to find out things about her life without asking to be told about the future. I like to be surprised.

"So there were so many kids in those photographs in the living room," I said while Hermione winced at the sweetness of her tea and I grinned as she rolled her eyes and persevered with it while I continued, "we don't have to buy Christmas presents for them all do we?"

"Ron!" she said, attempting to look outraged but not managing to keep from laughing as she did, "They are you nephews and nieces and we love them all dearly."

"They're _all_ nephews and nieces?" I said with a raised eyebrow.

She looked stony faced. It was the enforced look of immovability she would get just before I beat her at chess.

"You know they're not all nephews and nieces."

I left it at that and took a slurp from my own cup.

"In fact," there it was, she was folding, I had to stop her.

"Don't tell me!" I said as I waggled a warning finger and she huffed before smiling, "Besides, I suspect I might have met...a certain person already."

"Mmmm," Hermione said as she gazed out of the window, "I suspect you may have."

We sat in silence before I rested my head on my hand and my elbow on the table and stared over at the pathetic display of cakes on offer.

"Don't tell me you are actually finding those things appealing?" Hermione said with an amused gasp.

I moved my eyes but not my head to meet hers.

"I may be."

"Oh good Godric no, I can see a bluebottle crawling all over one of those iced fingers from here, you are not putting that into your mouth Ron," she said in her wonderful bossy tone.

I shrugged and smirked.

"I've had worse."

She took a swing at me but I was too fast and jumped up from the table and ran out the door where I paused to see her calling after me.

"Hey you said you'd crawl for an old woman!"

I rolled my eyes and dropped to my knees, making my getaway back the way we had come.

HERMIONE: Merlin he was actually doing it, he was crawling. I'd forgotten how carefree he used to be, so shameless and careless and spontaneous. Considering the life I knew he had lived up to this point that made me quite proud of him and a tad emotional to boot.

I walked over to the woman at the counter who was chuckling at the sight of a twenty one year old man crawling down Walton pier on his hands and knees and took out my purse to pay for our teas.

"Oh no it's alright dear," the rosy-cheeked woman said as she gestured outside to Ron, "your son already paid."

I tried not to let my jaw drop, I really did, but down it went and there it stayed.

"They're a nightmare when they're that age aren't they? What to be treated like an adult one minute and the next they're making puppy dog eyes at you to get you to do their washing for them."

I forcibly closed my mouth and swallowed before nodding and leaving the cafe. I walked after Ron who, bless his commitment to this joke, was still crawling and I picked up my pace to catch him up. As I reached him I grabbed his arm and pulled him up to his feet, dragging him along behind me as I rushed onwards.

"Whoa babe, where are we going in such a hurry, you expecting rain or something?" he said as he strode along behind me.

I was practically running but his legs were so long he just had to walk double time to keep in step with me and I saw what I was aiming for. It was an abandoned Punch and Judy tent and I dragged Ron inside and snapped up at him firmly.

"Apparate to our bedroom and meet me there!"

And with that I disapparated.

RON: I wondered what was going on with all the mood swings, was Hermione going through the change, I must remember to ask mum when women do that. Then I must ask her exactly what it is.

I appeared back in the bedroom where I had changed my top and saw Hermione waiting for me with wide eyes and she was biting her bottom lip so hard I was worried she might draw blood.

"Hermione what's the..." I didn't get to finish.

She kissed me and ran her fingers through my hair, I just stood there for a few seconds before really joining in, she had caught me off guard after all. Soon I was returning her kisses and puling her hair out of that untidy plait, tangling my fingers in it.

I could still taste the sweetness of the tea on her lips and felt somewhat pleased for my older self that my wife was still just as passionate as ever even when we were a pair of old fogies. I felt her hand slipping under my t-shirt and rising up my back. I lowered my head and began kissing her neck while she raked her fingernails down my bare back and began to whisper into my hair.

"I love you so much. I've missed you so much."

I lifted my head again to respond but she closed her mouth over mine once more and she pulled my t-shirt up and around my shoulders before we broke apart just long enough for her to yank it over my head and toss it aside. I was unbuttoning her blouse when she lost patience and pulled back to tear it away from herself.

"Bloody hel..." I was cut off by her kisses again as we edged our way slowly over to the bed.

She was unbuttoning my jeans while I was lifting her skirt and the last words either of us spoke were.

"I love you."

HERMIONE: I've been lying here watching him sleep for almost an hour now. He's got one leg under the sheet and one on top and his right arm is covering his face while the left one is curled around the top of my right thigh.

I want to be like this forever. I don't ever want him to have to get up and get dressed. I don't ever want him to fade away out of this bed and go back home to the other version of me who doesn't know how lucky she is. I don't want to be alone again.

I weave the fingers of my right hand in and out of his fiery hair, that wonderful shaggy mess that I loved and then hated, missed when he cut it off and insisted he keep forever when he grew it back to be just the same copper haystack it always was. It was so soft and smelled so much like him. I actually thought about cutting a lock of it off while he was asleep.

What a juvenile thought that was. Here I was, a mature woman in her fifties, contemplating cutting a lock of her love's hair to keep at her side forever more. I'm like one of those pathetic novels of Ginny's that I refuse to read.

I must go back to that pier when Ron finally leaves me to return to his own time. I must find that woman and thank her. If she hadn't mistaken me for Ron's mother I would never have seen what I was trying to suppress all afternoon.

Ron Weasley, at any age and at any time, is mine and I will have my way with him at any age and any time. Damn what it looks like to the rest of the world and damn what it looks like to the shiny faced old bat at the cafe. Call me a dirty old woman if you must. I'm dirty and old and proud of it!

Well that any age thing obviously doesn't apply to him in baby form...I'm not _that_ kind of dirty old woman!


	8. New Beginnings

**New Beginnings**

_16th September 1998 (Ron is 18)_

RON: I had just had a briefing with Langley, who I swear is getting rounder by the day, we may have to widen his door by the new year, and was walking back to my office with my nose buried deep within my notes. There had been a mini disaster last mission and somebody had to be held accountable so it was down to me to pin the blame.

As I walked past my secretary's desk I nodded without looking away from the diagram of the Death Eater stronghold that had been destroyed before full checks had been made that it was clear of all personnel and a trainee called Edwards had got his leg crushed in the rubble.

"Can you bring me the field reports from Hardy, Davis and..." I looked along the list of personnel who were present that day and smiled when I saw his name, "...what the hell, give me Potter's as well, I could do with a laugh."

I was about to kick the door closed behind me when I recognised the giggle that came from my secretary's desk and poked my head back around the door.

"Lavender?"

"Good morning Mr Weasley," she beamed and I shuddered.

"Oh don't Mr Weasley me please. What are you doing here?"

She sat up straight in her chair and attempted to look prim.

"I am your new secretary sir."

"Don't 'sir' me either!" I grimaced before closing my file completely and wondering why I hadn't had to sign my old secretary's transfer request, "What happened to Janet?"

"Janet," Lavender tried to think of a way to put what she had to say delicately, "is squeamish."

Well that was a new one on me.

"Squeamish?" I blinked while Lavender struggled not to laugh, "I have a squeam-inducing naked body do I?"

"Oh no Agent Weasley, she was full of praise for that, perk of the job as far as she was concerned, it was just the pukeing she couldn't handle."

I had to admit, my nausea was getting worse these days. I sat down on the corner of Lavender's desk, putting down my file full of notes, and set about my usual pre-amble with a new secretary.

"Well you obviously know about my condition and all that entails..."

_Entails, hark at me!_

She nodded and began to count off on her fingers.

"Always keep a spare set of clothing on hand, make sure you get something to eat and drink whenever you get back from a trip, and ask for Healer Wanless if I ever have to floo St Mungo's for you. Oh and sometimes you get sick when you come or go."

"That's pretty much it. You've got security clearance on the highest level too?"

Again she nodded, this time with some considerable pride.

"Youngest ministry secretary to gain clearance in the history of the department."

I waved my hands in mock celebration.

"Woo!"

Her face became slightly serious.

"So I know the true nature of your job and I know that you have selected Hermione Granger as your 'in case of emergency' person in the event of...an event."

I nodded and we shared an awkward silence. I suddenly felt self-conscious sitting on her desk and jumped back to my feet.

"So," I said, clearing my throat, "as long as you don't feel weird about the nudity it should be fun."

"Why would you think that would bother me?" she smiled an enigmatic smile at me.

I felt a little uncomfortable about this conversation now.

"Well y'know? It's bad enough just to see your boss naked without warning but we used to be..."

"Friends?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Exactly, well no, I mean we still are friends aren't we?"

"Absolutely," she nodded.

"Good," I smiled as I went back into my office before remembering that I'd left the file on Lavender's desk and hopping back out again, "I forgot the..."

She was already holding it up for me and we laughed.

"Listen if we're going to work together we've got to lose this weird tension we've still got between us," Lavender said before smiling thoughtfully and sitting forward in her chair, "how about we go for a drink after work and catch up with each other properly?"

I swallowed at this suggestion. I didn't know which part of it made me more uncomfortable.

"Um well the thing is..." I began, feeling my damn ears beginning to glow under my untidy hair.

Her face fell and she resumed her straight-backed prim secretary pose with a flush creeping over her own face as she did.

"No sorry that was so unprofessional of me I am so sorry it won't happen again Agent Weasley."

"No it's not that, and please call me Ron ok? It's just," I couldn't believe she didn't know, she knew everything else, "You still see quite a bit of Neville and Seamus don't you?"

She blinked as she tried to follow my train of thought in getting to that question.

"Well yes I do, Parvati is going out with Dean Thomas and she's my best friend, Seamus is Dean's so we socialise a lot. Why do you ask?"

"Did they never mention, um..." I tried to avoid getting into it but she really didn't seem to know what I was skirting around as she frowned back at me with concern, "I don't drink."

Wow, that was pretty blunt wasn't it?

"Oh," she said, as if wondering why that was such a big deal for me to say, then her eyes grew wide and she gasped, "_Oh!_ I'm so sorry, that was such a stupid thing to say to you I can't believe I just did that."

I was kind of taken back by her level of mortification and laughed.

"It's ok, you didn't know, I don't broadcast it or anything."

Her hands were clamped over her mouth and she looked truly upset.

"But I remember now, they did tell me but you know how it is when people are talking about all the dreadful things that are happening to people and Seamus said the name and then started talking about...and I never thought that it was you. I just thought it was some other Ron not my Ron," her eyes widened even further, "I didn't mean _my_ Ron, I don't have a Ron. Oh shut up Lavender!"

I chuckled at her getting more and more flustered by her faux-pas and thought that it was kind of nice that she felt as awkward about this as me. I also thought that we would be able to work together pretty well as long as we just acted like friends who happened to work together.

"It's ok Lavender, don't tie yourself up in knots about it, I put my foot in it all the time so it's kind of cool to have someone else in there with me!"

She smiled and I held up my folder and headed back into my office.

"So um, Davis, Hardy and," I said, in an attempt to get back to business as usual.

"Potter, I'll get right on it."

HERMIONE: I have had the worst day of my life.

All my independent house elves walked out on me and begged wizarding families to take them on as servants for no wages and with no holidays or proper clothing. I can't convince them that servitude is a bad thing and after all the progress we were making with the alternative employment options as well. I could've sworn that apothecary was really thinking about taking on a house elf as an apprentice.

Then all my lab assistants decided to transfer into a area with 'more potential' in the post-war wizarding world, leaving me to champion the whole rehabilitation of magic programme to the board in the new year and I'm just a bloody intern!

Then it rained on me all the way to and from both apparition points because Ron was tying up the fireplace with a call for half an hour and I broke the heel off my shoe climbing up the stairs to our flat.

I would say I hated this day but I can't.

I walked through the door, looking like a lame drowned rat, and saw Ron in the kitchen cooking dinner and dancing like a fool to the wireless as it blared in the background. I hid behind the cloak stand for a minute or two to watch him, fighting to hold in the laughter as the song on the wireless slowed down and Ron proceeded to slow-dance with the mop. He even paused to dip it, I was quite impressed, he never danced like that with me. Mind you, mops don't have feet to tread on do they?

An oven timer went off and Ron dumped his dance partner unceremoniously into a bucket head first before flinging the oven door open and congratulated himself on a magnificent roast pheasant.

"Where did you get pheasant?" I blurted out loud, forgetting that I was supposed to be hiding.

He let out a very unmanly squeal and almost dropped his masterpiece on the floor.

"Bloody hell Hermione, I didn't hear you floo!"

"Well the wireless is pretty loud, " I gestured before running my fingers through my tangled and dripping hair, "and I didn't anyway, _somebody_ had their head in there for half an hour when I wanted to use it."

"Oh that was me," he said stupidly.

"You don't say?"

"I forgot to tell Lavender that I wouldn't be in until noon tomorrow and she got chattering, you know what she's like."

He lifted the lid off one of the pots on the stove and began to remove the steaming green beans as if he hadn't said anything that would cause me to go on a killing spree of jealousy at all.

"Lavender?" I tried to say with as much nonchalance as possible but only managed to sound like a pigmy puff being stepped on.

Ron had obviously taken my squeak to mean I had trapped my fingers in something as he leaned back from serving the roast potatoes with a frown of concern on his face.

"You alright?"

"Fine," I said as I caught sight of myself in the mirror and wished that I didn't look like one of Grawp's hairballs, "so you've got another new secretary have you?"

Ron nodded before looking very annoyed and huffing as he spoke. My heart leapt, he wasn't happy about Lavender being assigned to him and would drive her away with his obnoxious behaviour. How I love Ron's obnoxious behaviour when it's aimed at beautiful blonde women.

"Can you believe it," he began and I was only too willing to join in on the Lavender's a nightmare sing along, "Lavender told me that Janet's reason for transferring from me was squeamishness. How is that a reason? I made her squeamish!"

Ron huffed again and reached out for the gravy while I tried to keep my head together and not let Ron see that I was just as insecure as I had been when he had been dating her at school. She was everything I wasn't, she was a proper girlie girl and I was, well I was just me.

"I mean I know it's not been much fun with me since I cleaned up and started travelling again but I can't help it if the nausea's getting worse can I?"

I suddenly lost my focus on the Lavender issue and rubbed his back with concern.

"Did you have another episode today then?"

"No actually, third day in a row," we both lifted our arms in celebration at this momentous event, "you'd almost think that I was a normal person."

"Never!"

We both laughed and I carried our plates through to the dining table while Ron pulled out a bottle of fruit juice from the fridge. It was then that I realised just what Lavender being Ron's secretary would mean.

"So she's filled in on all your special requirements is she?" I asked as he poured.

"Who's this?" he asked as he sat down and picked up his knife and fork.

"Lavender, does she know what's expected of her?" I asked as casually as I could before muttering under my breath, "And what's not expected."

"Oh yeah, she got filled in before she got there, fresh clothes, healer Wanless and you're my emergency contact all that stuff, I went over it myself just to be safe."

Something in me felt smug. She had been told that I was Ron's emergency contact, that should make it perfectly clear to her if she had any ideas I thought, and I tried not to dwell on the number of times she would be seeing my boyfriend naked in the coming months.

"Kind of freaked me out at first," Ron said after swallowing his mouthful and looking up from his plate with a significant look on his face, I was about to confess to him that I was totally freaked out myself when he shrugged and went back to cutting into his pheasant, "but we had a chat and she seems cool. A lot more laid back then when I knew her."

I almost choked on my mouthful but he didn't notice and went on.

"Well that was until she offered to take me for a drink," he said with a look of real amusement on his face.

"What?" I was almost on my feet and diving head first into the fireplace to beat that strumpet to a pulp, not only does she ask out _my_ boyfriend but she asks him out for a _drink_ after all he's been through.

"She heard about it at Seamus and Neville's place but never really put it together apparently and she went all distraught when she realised what she'd said."

He was shaking his head and smiling but I couldn't eat anymore. I felt as if my stomach was twisted into a knot and my blood was about to turn into steam and shoot out of every orifice in my body with rage. Ron went quiet all of a sudden and glanced up at me with a serious look on his face. Great, he'd noticed that I was the canary wielding jealous Hermione again.

"It's gonna be like that every time I tell somebody isn't it?" he said quietly.

"What?" I said, still with my mind on other things and wondering if my rage had just cancelled out a whole conversation.

"Every time somebody offers me a drink I'm going to have to tell them and they're going to go all...they're going to treat me differently aren't they?"

I rose from my chair and moved around the table to put my arms around him for reassurance.

"Don't you ever be ashamed of yourself about that Ron, not ever, I am so proud of you for being able to come back from that. If people have a problem with it then they'll have me to answer to."

He pulled me onto his lap and we shared a short kiss before he stabbed a piece if pheasant with his fork and fed it to me.

"This is really good, you never did say where you got it from."

"Harry was working 'oop north' today and a grateful muggle poacher gave him a couple of pheasant for doing him a little favour in return."

"Poacher, favours...that all sounds a bit dodgy doesn't it?" I frowned.

Ron had the strangest smile on his face as he looked back up at me and fed me another portion of the pheasant.

"Mmm, he better hope that there's not an Auror watchdog keeping an eye on him."

I fed Ron a piece of pheasant as I wondered who would be keeping an eye on Lavender Brown.


	9. Close Quarters

**Close Quarters**

_30th September 1998 (Ron is 23 and Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: At first I told myself I was just being paranoid about Lavender, it was all in my head and things have changed since we were all at school together, and for a while I had myself convinced but only for a while though.

We have changed since school. This isn't some silly little schoolgirl crush or some drippy melodramatic heartbreak, this is getting serious now and I hate to see the look on Ron's face when he comes back home every night. I know he doesn't want to tell me about the day but I have made him swear to me to tell me everything, no matter how upsetting it might be.

The first couple of weeks he kept it to himself, he said because he thought it was just his imagination, but when he walked in the door and threw himself down into his armchair with a weary huff I made him tell me what was wrong and he did. He told me because he knew he wasn't imagining it now.

Lavender Brown was moving in on him.

At first it was just a pat on the arm that lingered a little longer than was really necessary. Then she would come into the office for long chats about nothing in particular. He came back from an episode with a nasty gash on his head and she seemed to press up against him unnecessarily when she was healing him and then, and this was the thing that did it for me, she leaned forward to his newly healed would and kissed it better.

Ron had apologised for not telling me about it all that day, he had been trying to convince himself that she was just being playful with him, and I had told him I wasn't angry with him and for him to go on. I wanted to know what had happened to cause him to need to tell me.

_"I came back from lunch and she was all tearful about something and when I asked her what was wrong she just ran out crying. So I went into my office and there was a pile of my spare clothes on the floor and the table lamp was smashed so I knew I'd been travelling back there from somewhere and Lavender had been helping me out like she's supposed to."_

He had paused and I nodded for him to go on while gripping a cushion as tightly as I wanted to be wringing her neck at that very moment.

_"Well I gathered up the clothing and repaired the lamp and Lavender came rushing back in and just threw herself at me," _I almost tore through the fabric of the cushion cover, _"she was hugging me and crying and just yammering on and on as if we'd been talking for hours about something..."_

I demanded more detail than that. I wanted to know exactly what kind of things she had been saying to him.

_"Stuff like," _Ron had been wincing with discomfort at having to have this conversation with me, _"she could wait, as long as it took she could wait and she wasn't ashamed of loving me and I wouldn't keep coming to her if I didn't want her deep down and that whatever she's done she wanted me to remember that she did it out of love and I have to remember that when the time comes..."_

I had asked him what time and he had shaken his head and pulled me into a hug, which I returned when I realised just how disconcerting that day had, been for him.

_"I mentioned something about an internal transfer, to try and put some distance between us y'know?" _I nodded, _"but she just burst into tears again and ran back out again. It's like she thinks I'm appearing naked in front of her because I want to."_

I shushed him and we just sat together in the armchair in total silence until he drifted off to sleep and I went into the kitchen to heat something up for dinner.

I was in the lab with several test subjects when the owl showed up bearing a note from Lavender informing me that Ron was just on his way home from work when he had had another seizure so I was to expect him to be late for dinner. She also said that she would wait in the office for him to come back to be sure he was alright.

Something about that made my blood boil. She was waiting for him to come back to her in the nude so she could help him if he was hurt and give him something to drink when he needed it. I also didn't like the way she was owling me to let me know not to wait up for him in so many words, she was going to do it for me. She was lining herself up to replace me, that's what it felt like anyway.

"Miss Hermione Granger sir," a gravelling house elf called Tippy simpered at my feet, "I is glad you like house elves like Tippy and I is appreciative of you wanting to give us better lives and productive jobs and all you said before..."

I smiled at the house elf as he almost cringed as he spoke. This particular elf was incredibly formal and I was trying to get him to drop that but he would still call me by my full name and occasionally add the odd 'sir' for good measure.

"Well thank you Tippy, I'm glad you're coming around to see your usefulness and potential in society."

"Yes," he nodded," yes you is right. Tippy could be a healer and Tippy could be a teacher or a craftsman of caldrons and magical amulets with all of my magical experience. Tippy sees that he has potential Miss Hermione Granger but Tippy knows what job he wants to do. I like my potential but I just want to tidy up after a loving family sir. It is all Tippy wants and loves. I is wanting to look after people sir. Why is I wrong to want to make people happy?"

I heaved a great sigh and wondered how to go about answering that question when there was a knock on the window and I glanced up to see Ron, very well built and with shorter hair than I'm used to, waving at me from the cover of some bushes.

"Tippy would you be able to do me a great favour please?"

The house elf stood to attention with pride.

"Anything for Miss Hermione Granger!" he almost shook with joy at being given a task to do.

Several other house elves on the program ran over and tried to shove Tippy aside, one of them threw down a quill and job application form that I had spent three days convincing her to fill in and demanded that she be allowed to do a menial task as well, I raised my arms to silence them all and spoke to them as a crowd.

"I need _one_ of you to fetch Ron's spare clothing from the locker and another one of you to get him something to eat and drink," as every single house elf ran in a different direction declaring that they would do everything and more all by themselves I shouted, "and I will pay you for the service!"

Every one of them flinched as they froze on the spot and Tippy begrudgingly stomped off to do as he was asked, seeming to feel obliged seeing as it had been he I had originally asked for help. I looked back out of the window where Ron was looking quite amused and gave me a shrug of sympathy. I walked across the lab and opened the window, helping him to climb through and marvelling at how muscular he gets in the future as I did.

"Please tell me it gets better?" I sighed as I looked around at the remaining house elves that were trying to find things to dust and tidy while Tippy carried the bundle of spare clothing over to Ron and presented it to him with averted eyes to protect his modesty.

"Thanks Tippy," he chuckled and the house elf flinched as they had never actually met before, I forced a sickle into Tippy's hand as he took it as if it burned him and ran away in apparent shame, "I'd like to tell you ya get somewhere with this lot but..."

I rolled my eyes.

"You can't divulge information about the future unless it's absolutely necessary blah, blah, blah," I said before grinning at him, my Ron impersonation was coming along nicely I thought.

"Well that too but I was going to say you always made me swear never to lie to you and I'm sorry babe but you've backed a loser here," he beamed that winning smile of his as he pulled a sweatshirt over his head and ruffled his short hair with his hand.

"You got your hair cut?" I said, never thinking I would see the day come.

It was his turn to roll his eyes now.

"I'm growing it out again, all mum's idea," he began to mimic his mother's fussing tone, "you can't get married looking like a scarecrow!"

I raised my eyebrows; this Ron was obviously coming from just before of after our wedding.

"So when are you coming from?" I ask him, nonchalantly wanting to discover the year of our marriage.

"2003," he said as he reached out for the huge jug of water that had just been levitated into the room by another resentful house elf who ran away from me before I could inflict them with the shame of payment, "why, when is this? I've obviously gone backwards if Tippy's still here."

He lifted the jug and drank straight from it as I held out a glass for him to fill. I laughed in wonder as he gulped almost half of it down in one go.

"Thirsty are you?"

He grinned and gave a shrug while wiping his chin.

"Well it's 1998."

His face seemed to change and he was being wary of something.

"What time of year?"

"Autumn," I frowned and he sighed and smiled again.

"I was worried I was putting you through it but that's all over and done with by now isn't it?"

"What do you mean? Do you mean the drinking?" I asked as he took another swig from the jug.

"Yeah, sorry about all that I was...well I didn't know how to cope back then did I?"

I smiled at him and hoped he didn't always feel the need to apologise for the couple of months we lost him to the alcohol.

"I don't know, you're coping pretty well right now," I said as I nodded him to come and sit down with me.

"Oh Godric Hermione you have no idea how much I wasn't coping..." he seemed to catch himself out and stopped himself from saying what he had begun to say.

I stared up at him with great concern for the person he had been five years ago, the person I was concerned about right now, and took his hand with a squeeze as I tried to get some reassurance.

"You weren't coping with the drinking?"

"No, no I didn't mean that. I didn't mean anything, don't pay any attention to me babe I've got all my dates messed up it's the _end_ of the year right, everything's fine."

I narrowed my eyes and tried to read his expression, I could still do it but it was much harder than it usually was. I think that the Ron of the future must get better at covering his tracks and concealing those tell-tale signs, better but not quite good enough.

"So you become a liar in the future do you?" I asked with a scowl.

He tuts at me and shakes his head.

"Never can fool you can I?"

I shuffle my chair closer to him and hold his hand in both of mine now. His hand is much stronger and rougher than I'm used to but he's just as gentle as ever. I look up into his eyes, no longer partially hidden behind a messy curtain of vivid red hair, and try to find out just how worried I should be.

"So tell me what you weren't coping with Ron?"

He shifted slightly in his seat and looked me in the eye.

"Has the situation at work become a problem yet?"

I felt my stomach do a double back flip.

"This is about Lavender isn't it?"

That seemed to be all he needed to know and he blew air out of his mouth and shook his head.

"He's going to need you to trust him babe."

"Of course I do," I began to say, wondering why on earth my future husband would think that I had no faith in his younger self.

"_And_," he said firmly, "you're going to have to support him like you did for me in the beginning."

I didn't like the sound of that 'in the beginning'.

"Because work was nothing but stress and on top of coming down from the booze and all the epilepsy crap I had to handle coming home to you was the only thing that kept me going."

I stared up into his face and saw that he was remembering a painful time for himself and I leaned forward and kissed him before he smiled and feigned outrage.

"Miss Granger I'm a married man I'll have you know!"

We laughed and I took my married boyfriend out for lunch. He kept me company for three more hours at work before dozing off on the dissection table, which was only named that and not a description of its purpose thankfully, and vanishing fifteen minutes later leaving a pile of clothes on the tabletop in the sun.

I smiled as I tidied his things away. I was going to like being married to him.

* * *

_1st October 1998 (Ron is 18)_

RON: I had just got back from visiting myself a week ago today and was jumping up and down on one leg as I tried to get my trousers back on when Lavender burst into the room. She was in tears as she slammed the door behind her.

"I love you Ron."

I almost fell over as I yanked my trousers all the way up and tried to fathom where this sudden declaration had come from.

"What have I done to deserve that?" I asked as I fastened my trousers and reached out to pick up my shirt from my desk.

"My love is not a _punishment!" _she screeched, causing me to actually duck as if her indignation was some kind of missile being hurled at me.

"Sorry Lavender, I didn't mean it like that, it's just," I fumbled for the right way to express myself, "what have I done to encourage you?"

"Everything about you encourages me," she screamed as more tears cascaded down her scarlet cheeks, "You smile at me when you arrive at work every day. You make _me_ tea, no boss I've ever had has made me tea before they've just treated me like their lackey, and you know exactly how I take it without ever having to ask."

"Lavender its just tea, nobody's ever made you tea without an ulterior motive before?" I couldn't get my head around this, since when were good manners a come-on? "Do you want me to treat you like a lackey? I can't do that, I could never treat you like that."

Lavender snorted at this statement.

"Why, because you _respect_ me so much? Don't make me laugh Ron. I'm nothing to you, I never have been, and I don't need your pity."

"Well what do you need then? What am I supposed to do?"

"I need you to care!"

"Lavender I do, just not in the way..."

She didn't let me finish. Instead she grabbed my head, almost ripping off one of my ears in the process, and covered my mouth with hers. I forced my lips closed and shoved her backwards. She hit the desk with the back of her thighs and her momentum sat her down on top of it.

"Why could you never love me back?" she wailed.

"You know why."

"But I had you first! You were mine and she stole you away from me."

I had had enough of this little fantasy version of our relationship that Lavender had re-written inside her own head.

"I was never yours Lavender. We weren't...we were never supposed to be together, you know that."

"I know I love you no matter how badly you've hurt me in the past. That will never change Ron. Why can't you love me back? Why Ron, am I so disgusting to you?"

She began to slide off of the desk and move towards me and I took a firm hold of her by the shoulders and set her back down again.

"You said you had me first Lavender," I said calmly, in an effort to get her to lower her voice, "well you didn't, she did. Hermione always had me. We were a mistake. I don't want to sound harsh but it's the truth."

"How could you say that to me?" she whimpered to me, imploring me to take it back with her watery eyes.

I rubbed my hand up and down her arm for comfort.

"Look I'm sorry but..."

"Don't touch me!" she screamed as she jumped off the desk and paced away over to the fireplace, "I can't stand it."

I reached over to the transfer paper I had been trying to build myself up to hand her for the past week now.

"Lavender I think I should get you reassigned somewhere else in the ministry. Maybe if we weren't in each other's faces all day every day..."

"No!" she sobbed from the very depths of her body as she ran over to me and grabbed me into a desperate hug, "Please Ron, don't send me away, you need me. I help you with your travelling don't I? I cover for you and I keep your clothes waiting for you, and I get you food and drink because I know you're always hungry, and I have medicine and potions ready for when you come back hurt or sick. You need somebody to look after you Ron. Don't send me away, please."

I ran my fingers through my hair while she sobbed into my chest, I was so tired of all this.

"You make it really hard to be your friend you know that?" I sighed wearily.

"Let me, I'm sorry I promise I'll get myself sorted out, please let me be your friend Ron. Let me stay and look after you, as a friend and just a friend. Please?"

She was hugging me so tightly and I rubbed her back to try and calm her down some more. I really didn't want to keep her so close, it would be for the best if I just got her an internal transfer, but she might go over the edge if I rejected her in two ways at once. I heaved another sigh and she sniffed into my shirt before looking up at me, teary-eyed.

"Nobody else will look after you like I do. I'll explain it to Hermione if you're doing this because she's jealous."

I couldn't believe this. She really thought that was the only reason I wouldn't be with her, fear of getting caught.

"She's not jealous Lavender, she trusts me, it's you. She's worried about you, we both are."

"Let me stay Ron please, I'll never try to...not again, I'm sorry I tried to kiss you before. I'm..."

I couldn't let this go on any longer; we were just going round in circles now.

"You can stay Lavender alright?" I said, feeling more tired than I had in a long time, "You can stay, of course you can, just don't cry ok?"


	10. The Two Ronnies

**The Two Ronnies**

_17th November 1998 (Ron is 18 and 18, Hermione is 19)_

RON: I stepped out of the fireplace and brushed the soot off my clothes before glancing around the flat to see if Hermione was home. She didn't appear to be.

I pulled off my jacket and threw it onto the sofa before walking into the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror. I sighed my relief at seeing that there were no visible bruises on my face, I had been worried about how to explain that one away to Hermione, and pulled off my shirt to take a look at my back.

_Oh bollocks!_

I looked as if I have been whipped with an iron rod. Long thin bruises covered the whole of my back and one even seemed to disappear beneath the waistband of my trousers and continue on to my left buttock. That probably explained why it hurt so much when I sat down after I returned from the ambush at Droitwich Spa that afternoon.

I was struggling to angle my wand behind my back in an attempt to heal myself while turning my head uncomfortably to see what I was doing in the bathroom mirror when I hear sounds coming from the bedroom, familiar sounds, sounds that I didn't usually hear when I wasn't in the bedroom too.

"Oh Godric I love you," Hermione was panting.

I almost herniated a disc with the speed I turned back away from the mirror to stare in horror at the bathroom door. I gripped my wand tightly and held it ahead of me as I flung the bathroom door open and barged into our bedroom ready to take somebody's blood. That was when I saw what had happened and let out a groan of disgust.

"Ron!" Hermione yelped and threw off the other version of me she had just finished humping, "When did you get here? When are you coming from?"

I realised that she thought that I was the travelling version and glared at myself. The other me looked as if he was trying to appear guilty but wasn't able to pull it off due to the huge smile on his face.

"_I'm _coming from work Hermione," I said with a huff, "_he's_ the one coming from somewhere else!"

Hermione drew a sharp intake of breath and turned on her shagging partner who shrugged and sat up in an annoyingly casual manner.

"Only a week, it's no big deal babe."

"A week ahead of me is a big deal," I yelled at him, "you're a week older than I am, you are not me."

He looked so smug. I wondered if I pulled that face often, I hoped not, and then wondered why more people didn't smack that look off my face when they saw it.

"Well let's see how you feel this time next week you horny sod," he chuckled.

Hermione was watching this exchange as if she was watching a tennis match, her head turning from one side of the bedroom to the other, with her jaw hanging open at the bizarre circumstances of her own life.

"I am not horny!" I protested.

"Well let's see how you feel after she sees the state of your back, a big fight escalates, and she withholds sex for a week," he said as he leaned back against the headboard and folded his arms with another self-satisfied grin.

Hermione turned on me with livid eyes.

"What's wrong with your back?"

I glared at my other self and hissed with seething rage at what a prick I could be.

"You bastard!"

He looked delighted as he chuckled, this moment was obviously a lot more fun from his side of things, and faded away before my furious gaze. All he left was an indentation in the pillow and a small pocket of air in the shape of his body beneath the sheets.

Hermione threw herself off of the bed and grabbed me, spinning me around and gasping with horror at the state of my back.

"Who did this?" she demanded as she spun me back around to face her.

"Nobody did it, I fell down some stairs that's all," I lied.

"Only on your back?" she scoffed.

"Well of course not, I was covered in them but..." I realised that telling her I had been more hurt than she first thought probably wasn't going to help me out but it was too late to turn back now, "...I could reach those ones to heal myself."

My voice had tailed off as I saw the fury building up in her face before she shoved me unceremoniously, face down, onto the bed and set about healing the bruises all over my back.

"And why couldn't Lavender have done this for you may I ask? Isn't that part of her job description, to heal you to the best of her abilities when you show up hurt? Why did she let you come home like this?"

I wondered if I could suffocate myself with of the fluffy pillows beside my head. I really didn't want to answer that question but I had made a point of being completely honest about everything that was going on with the Lavender situation ever since it first became a problem. She knew I wouldn't lie to her now and she knew she wasn't going to like it when I told her.

"Why didn't you let her heal you Ron?" Hermione said while roughly yanking down my trousers to heal the bruise on my buttock.

"I didn't want to encourage her ok?" I said with a wince, "I've kind of been...dealing with it myself rather than calling on her to do it this past couple of weeks."

Hermione grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me over onto my now healed back to vent her fury at me face to face.

"What?" she snapped, "That's it Ron you have to transfer her to another department she's letting her emotions get in the way of doing her job."

"Hermione I can't, you know what state she got herself in last time when I suggested it."

"I don't care!" she bellowed down at me, rendering me mute with shock for a moment, "What if you come back seriously hurt one day Ron, hurt and naked, and she tries to take advantage of you?"

I couldn't believe that of her. Sure Lavender was getting a little more cuckoo every day now but she was just confused not immoral.

"She wouldn't," I said when I finally got my voice back, "I might have been wrong about that last time. You know me when I wake up I get all groggy and think all sorts of stupid stuff don't I?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes and walked away from me with a huff. I followed her into the living room where she was pacing up and down and attempting to suppress her clearly volatile emotions.

"She's even got you making excuses for her now, making you think it's your fault and that you're leading her on, that manipulative little bitch!"

"Hermione, c'mon..." I said as I tried to stop her pacing but she just shook me off and let out a growl of anger and frustration before folding her arms and staring out of the window, her back to me.

"You came back that morning unconscious, anything could've been wrong with you, you could have been dying for all she knew, and what did she do Ron? What was the first thing she did when she found you unconscious and naked on the floor of your office?"

I sighed; I really didn't want to get into this right now.

"I don't know I was unconscious."

Hermione spun around and practically screamed at me, her hair flying and her face flushed with rage.

"She kissed you!"

It might not have been the first thing that Lavender had done when she found me, I would never know, but it had been what I had seen and felt her doing when I woke up. She was bending over me and her lips were parted and her tongue was in my mouth. I had thrown her off of me as soon as I realised what was happening and started writing out the transfer papers before I was finished dressing but she broke down and begged me to let her stay. She said people would find out and it would ruin her ministry career. I swore that I wouldn't say a word about it to anybody but she just became a wreck and I couldn't do it. I thought I could help her, she wasn't well and I didn't want to be the one who pushed her over the edge, so I let her keep working for me.

She's been behaving herself pretty much since then but when I don't need to ask for her help I try not to. I thought it was best not to tempt fate.

Dean had come to the office a couple of days after that and told me that Lavender had shown up at his place looking for Parvati to console her about her 'awful situation at work' and he had been sent by his girlfriend to ask me to go easy on her. He thought I was over-working her. I was all ready to make my usual excuses when something just overtook me and I told him everything. He sat down afterwards and shook his head. Parvati had suspected that we were having an affair; she thought I was a total arsehole because of this apparently, but Dean believed me when I told him that Lavender was unstable. He said that he wouldn't tell Parvati if I didn't want him to but I thought that maybe her best friend might be able to help her so I asked him if he could have a word and get her to try and sort Lavender out for me.

I didn't want to have to put her out of a job or ruin her reputation.

"You're sacking her first thing in the morning Ron, no more second chances," Hermione said firmly.

"She doesn't know she's done anything wrong Hermione, I didn't tell her I was hurt, I didn't even tell her I'd been travelling."

"That doesn't matter I want her out of there," Hermione's body was rigid with tension.

"I can't sack somebody because I didn't give them the opportunity to do their job!" I struggled to explain.

She stared at me in a way I had never seen before and it made me feel very uneasy. I willed her to say something but when she finally did, in a low tone of repressed fury, I wished she hadn't.

"Well now we know why you had to travel back in time to get some don't we? I'm going to stay at my mother's for a while, _don't_ owl me."

She barged into the bedroom and slammed the door. She was only in there for five minutes before coming out fully dressed and carrying an overnight bag. She walked out the door without even glancing at me and I stood in the middle of the living room and wondered why I had chosen the path or complete honesty with my girlfriend in the first place.

I flooed over to Harry and Ginny's where my sister was fanning through a stack of bridal magazines. She looked up at me and sighed lazily.

"Harry's away until Tuesday, I would've thought you knew that of all people."

I did know it. I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her without a word. That was what made her look up with a frown of worry I think, I don't often do quiet with my sister.

"What's wrong, are you ok?" she tossed the magazine aside and took my hand while her eyes stared right into my mind in that eerily penetrating way they have when she's determined to wheedle out the truth.

I stared back at her and tried to bring myself to say it.

"I think..." this was too hard, I looked away before going on, "...I think Hermione's just left me."

* * *

_24th December 1998 (Ron is 18 and 20, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: It is one of the oddest and yet most wonderful sights I have ever witnessed. Harry, Ginny and the twins are just plain amused by it, Charlie is fascinated by the whole thing and his father has to keep nudging him to get him to close his mouth where it keeps hanging open every few minutes, and Bill is rendered quite uncomfortable by the whole thing. I sit with Fleur and talk about the baby she and Bill announced was due over dinner but soon our attention is grabbed by the drama over at the chessboard. Ron had finally made his first move.

"About bloody time!" Fred exclaimed while he, George and Harry broke into applause and Ginny whooped.

Ron shook his head and chuckled.

"Shut up!"

We all turned out attention to his opponent, the ultimate opponent for Ron and the very reason he had just spent twenty-four minutes deliberating his opening move. It was himself from two years in the future.

The twenty year old Ron sat back in his seat and scanned the board with his eyes, taking in every possible game plan he himself would have based upon that opening gambit before considering that his younger self would have a counter-attack planned for any move he could think of to make, and trying to find a tactic that he thought he wouldn't have taken into consideration two years earlier.

"This is bizarre," Charlie exhaled as he watched the two versions of his little brother trying to outwit each other.

"Don't distract him Charlie," Mr Weasley said with a smile, "you didn't interrupt the present Ron when he was concentrating did you?"

Charlie flinched and stared at his father before pointing at the visiting Ron.

"What _he's_ the one from the future?"

Fred and George laughed and slapped their bewildered brother on the back as they sat on either side of him.

"Right, I'll only go over this one more time for you Charlie alright?" George said with a patronising smirk, "The one playing with the white pieces and wearing the threadbare sweatshirt is _our_ Ron..."

_Our_ Ron glared over at George, obviously not taking the comment about his wardrobe in the spirit it had been intended, before looking back at his other self and watching his eyes move around the board and trying to read his intentions.

"...and the one playing with the black pieces," Fred continued, " and wearing the Weasley jumper that mum knitted for Ron this year is the grown-up Ron."

_Our_ Ron looked affronted at this and turned on his elder twin.

"Excuse me what do you mean by grown-up? I am an adult y'know?"

The other Ron chuckled at this and his younger self turned on him and folded his arms in a huff.

"And you can shut up as well ya git."

"Boys, language!" Mrs Weasley snapped as she walked into the living room carrying a tray full of mugs of steaming hot tea.

"Um boys?" the older Ron said with a raised eyebrow as he looked up at his mother, "I think you'll find that he's the one that swore, he's the boy."

Charlie shook his head in amazement again and Fleur and I chuckled at the flustered look on Mrs Weasley's face as she apologised to her innocent son while the twins nudged Harry and muttered.

"I think I like him better when he's twenty, do you think we could send our one back and keep the new and improved Ron instead?"

"I heard that!" Ron grunted and Bill got up and made an excuse to leave.

Fleur glanced at me and smiled before following him out and I noticed that our Ron was watching the two of them leaving with an uncomfortable look on his face. His older self nudged him under the table, only Harry and myself noticed this as we shared a look after it happened, and shook his head with a reassuring smile. Our Ron smiled back and nodded back down at the board. His opponent finally made his first move of the game and Ron stared at the layout of the board for three seconds before breaking into an irrepressible grin.

"Shit!" the older Ron hissed as he pounded his fist into his own leg on seeing that his whole game plan had just been read and deconstructed by his younger self.

Our Ron jumped to his feet and pointed down at his other self.

"He swore that time and his was worse than mine, get him mum!"

Ginny curled up into a ball on the floor as she fell off the sofa laughing and Harry couldn't look at Mrs Weasley, whose face seemed to be outraged that she just been instructed to set upon one of her children as if she was a rabid dog. Everybody was grinning at this insane event except for Charlie who was rubbing his head and looking more confused than ever.

"So can you read each other's minds?" he asked the two Ron's with a furrow in his brow that you could hold a pencil in.

The younger Ron sat back down and shared an amused glance with his other self before responding to his brother's question.

"We're the same person Charlie, we're not twins."

"I can't read his mind and we're twins," both Fred and George said before staring at each other in shock.

"No but," Charlie was getting into this now. He was treating his brother, or brothers as they were right now, as if he was new species he was studying in the wild and gathering information on for a wizarding journal, "what number am I thinking of right now?"

Both Rons snorted and shrugged before humouring him with an answer.

"Eighty two," they both said before doing a similar kind of double take that the twins had just done moments earlier, "Whoa!"

Harry turned to Charlie and excitedly asked him what number he had been thinking of.

"I wasn't thinking of a number, I just wanted to see what they said," he grinned with a shake of the head.

The older Ron snorted and urged his opponent to make his next move.

"Come on, I wasn't here long enough to finish this game first time around so get a move on."

The younger Ron raised both his eyebrows and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"So you don't complete the game eh? That means you forfeit and I win."

The older Ron sat back in his chair and folded his arms with a tut.

"Well I don't want to play now, the suspense is gone," the younger Ron said in all his arrogant glory.

"Well if you stop playing then you forfeit and I win," the older Ron said smugly.

"I'm getting a headache," Charlie said as he got up and walked out of the room and into the kitchen.

I decided to follow him and gave my Ron a wink as I passed him by, leaving the infinite forfeit rule of time travel chess under heated debate by both players and spectators alike. Charlie was head deep in the fridge looking for leftovers from dinner when I walked in and I saw Bill and Fleur coming back inside from what had obviously been a walk.

"Go back and sit down love," Bill was smiling before kissing her on the forehead, "I'll be back in a bit."

Fleur glided back through to the living room in that floaty way of hers and I smiled at Bill who was looking a little sheepish.

"Did he notice that I was a little weird?" Bill asked me.

"Who isn't?" Charlie answered as he backed out of the fridge with an arm full of different plates covered in tin foil and sitting down at the kitchen table with them.

Bill pulled up a chair and sat down at the table, I joined him and tried to reassure him that Ron was ok.

"He did but his other self let him know not to worry about it so you shouldn't either."

Bill ran his fingers through his long hair and looked down at the table.

"His other self...that's what's getting to me I think," he sighed, "I mean I've seen him older and younger all over the place but I've never seen him with himself, and they're so close in age too."

Charlie swallowed his mouthful of food, it was kind of like watching Ron eat actually, there didn't seem to be enough room inside his mouth for the amount of food he wanted to put in there in one go and tried to help his brother make some sense of it all.

"It's no different to seeing Fred and George talking to each other, that's what I keep telling myself."

"But it is different," Bill said as he turned to his brother, "Ron isn't a twin and besides, Fred and George aren't the same person, they have different personalities and temperaments don't they? Fred's quite aggressive and spiteful when the mood takes him and George is more of a peacemaker when he's not swept up in his own wicked streak. But this is different, they are the same person, they're both my baby brother but there at the same time."

"Not any more," Ron said as he leaned against the doorframe and smiled down at Bill, "he's just gone."

I smiled up at him.

"So present day Ron one after all then?"

He stood up straight and seemed to realise that I hadn't realised who I was talking to.

"No I'm still here, he's gone. Your Ron just left."

"Oh," I said before feeling suddenly concerned, he had vanished on Christmas Eve and I didn't know how long for, "will he be back soon?"

The older Ron shrugged and pulled up a chair.

"About an hour, I'll be gone by then myself, so if you could tell him that I said goodbye and that he forfeited the game so I win I'd be most grateful," he smiled.

I still felt a little uneasy and bit my bottom lip, he knew what I was thinking and leaned forward.

"I only go to my office in the middle of the night for about five minutes, he'll be fine when he gets back I promise."

I relaxed on hearing that and watched as Ron nudged Bill in the arm and beamed at him.

"What?" Bill asked uneasily.

"I know what sex your baby is, I know what sex your baby is..." he began to say in a singsong voice.

Bill broke into laughter and pulled his brother into a headlock.

"Shut up squirt, I want it to be a surprise!"

"Oh it will be," Ron said as he got Bill to release him by tickling him, Bill is the most girlish giggler I have ever heard in my life and all of his younger siblings exploited his sensitivity to tickling in order to get out of any situation with him, "seven heads it's got, each one uglier than the last!"

"Right that's it," Bill declared as Charlie almost choked on his cold-cuts with laughter as Ron sprang up out of his seat and ran for the back yard, with Bill in hot pursuit, "I know a certain spot behind your knees that sends you into hysterics and makes you sound as if your voice never broke!"

Ginny and Harry appeared at the kitchen door to see what all the commotion was about while Bill tackled Ron just a few feet away from the broom shed.

"What in Merlin's name is going on?" Ginny said, doing quite an unnerving impersonation of her mother.

"Bill and Ron are trying to see which one of us has the most feminine laugh while under tickle torture," Charlie grinned.

"Well that's easy, it's Percy!" Fred shrugged.

Ginny grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him out of the back door.

"Come on, you've got to see this."

I stayed in the kitchen, waiting for my Ron to reappear, and filed away that useful little titbit for future reference.

_Ticklish behind the knees eh?_


	11. The Dead Badger

**The Dead Badger**

_4th January 2007 (Ron is 26)_

RON: Harry and the Aurors were closing in on a Death Eater safe house in Norfolk when I apparated to the agreed point to be greeted by Eldridge.

"Agent Weasley, what's so urgent?"

"This mission has been compromised sir, there's been a breach in security, you can't let any of your team go inside the safe house. It's not safe."

"What? How do you know this?"

"How else?" I shrugged.

Eldridge put his wand to his throat and muttered the amplification spell before bellowing to the various Aurors under varying degrees of cover.

"Recalling all Aurors, abort the mission and recall all Aurors immediately!"

After returning his voice to normal again Eldridge turned to me, putting his wand away.

"I thought you said you weren't able to change the future, it was set in stone and what not."

"I'm not changing anything sit," I was sick of explaining the rules of time travel over and over again, "I'm not saving any lives so I'm not messing with anything important."

"Well in that case why can't we go in just to be sure?"

Just as I opened my mouth to respond the building exploded and Eldridge and myself were knocked off our feet onto the ground. As the debris fell several feet away from us multiple cracks sounded all around us as the recalled Aurors apparated back to the rendezvous point.

"Ron what are you doing here?" Harry said as Eldridge helped me back up to my feet.

"Agent Weasley discovered that this tip-off was in fact a trap," Eldridge said as he cast his eyes over his team to make sure they had all got back to him safely.

"Another one?" Parker said with an arched eyebrow.

"Yeah," I said as I took a step towards him, "_another_ one."

Harry pulled me away from the others to ask me the same question Eldridge had asked me moments earlier.

"Listen mate I didn't come here about the explosion, that never hurt anybody, I didn't change anything by stopping you guys."

"So why did you come then?"

I looked Harry in the eye and hoped he didn't ask too many questions about this.

"Because I'm supposed to stop you."

Harry blinked and became slightly edgy.

"Stop me what?"

"Killing somebody."

Harry looked at me and seemed to lose a pint of blood from his face.

"What?"

"Not on purpose, it's an accident, there's going to be an accident and someone gets killed. That's still going to happen, it's going to happen very soon, and I know it won't be your fault if I'm here distracting you like this."

Harry shook his head as if he was trying to order his thoughts.

"This is a life though," he said, "you always said you couldn't change anything like life and death, you said it was impossible to interfere."

"I'm not changing the fact that somebody's about to die Harry, I've told you a billion sodding times I can't do that, I'm changing the type of freak accident that kills them so you don't blame yourself."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Auror Davis flinch and Auror Cavendish hushed the group, pointing his wand into the woods to their left. Davis, Parker, Eldridge and the others followed suit.

"Everybody keep quiet," Davis whispered, "I think I heard something moving over there."

Harry cast a meaningful look my way and I nodded as we took a deep breath and withdrew our own wands.

"Let's just ask Agent Weasley what it is," Parker mumbled while keeping his eyes fixed upon the woods, "I mean he does have all the answers doesn't he?"

I glared over at the dark haired Auror but his black eyes were still scanning the shadows in readiness for an attack.

"Shut up Parker," Davis hissed, "I'm trying to listen."

"Is this it?" Harry whispered to me as he peered in amongst the tree trunks and bushes just ahead of us, "Which one of us is it Ron?" Tell me who to protect."

I covered the rear with my own wand, more to keep my head turned away from a suspicious Auror Parker than anything else as I hissed back at Harry in annoyance.

"Don't you ever fucking listen? I can't change that somebody dies, I can't change it if somebody is injured or blinded or any life-altering event, shit Harry I can't even change what you'll have for breakfast tomorrow. It's already done for me. Once it's done it's past and can't be undone."

"This isn't the bloody past Ron, Harry growled at me with frustration, "this is the present, this is now and I can stop it if you just tell me who to protect."

"It never stops!" I bellowed at him, causing the jumpy young Auror who had been on the team for all of three weeks to flinch and send whatever non-verbal spell he had been preparing himself to attack with shooting out into the woods.

As we all looked at the stunned rookie a cry of pain sounded out from the woods and a flock of birds left the canopy of the trees in shock. I ran for the trees, Harry in hot pursuit, and threw myself into the thicket. I lit my wand tip and searched around for the man I knew to be fatally wounded but couldn't see a thing.

"Where are they? Who were they Ron?" Harry called out as he too scanned the area with an illuminated wand.

"I don't know, I just know what she told me," I muttered.

"Who told you?"

I looked to my best friend, glancing around to be sure that the other Aurors who were now searching for the body couldn't hear me, and let out a sigh.

"My daughter."

Harry's jaw hung open for several seconds before a voice called out from an overgrown area a little way away from us.

"I've found blood, lots of it!"

We ran to the scene and saw Eldridge shaking his head.

"Sir?" Harry frowned, still somewhat dumbfounded by my revelation.

"Whoever they were they're pretty much dead already."

"How d'you mean?" I asked as I tried to push my way forward to get a look at the body.

Eldridge put his hand on my chest to stop me proceeding.

"They managed to disaparate, either that or they had a portkey on them, but the amount of blood they lost before they did," he shook his head again, "they had no hope, not even if they managed to apparate into a bed in St Mungo's surrounded by the best medi wizards and witches we've got."

Harry swallowed and looked me in the eye. I think he gets it at last. No matter what I tried to do whoever it was would always die. At least Harry's conscience was clear. It was then that we heard the young Auror who had let loose the powerful curse into the woods running towards us, white-faced and breathless.

"Davis said you found blood sir, is it...I didn't...did I sir?"

Eldridge was about to deliver the bad news to the poor guy when Harry stepped forward, slapped the kid on the shoulder, and laughed as if they were sharing a joke at the pub after work.

"It was a badger you berk, you went and killed a badger, I hope you're suitably ashamed of yourself?"

The young Auror heaved a sigh of relief and bent over, putting his hands on his knees.

"Oh thank Merlin. I thought I'd hurt somebody," he said meekly, "that sounded so much like a person."

I laughed along with Harry as we guided the other Aurors back out of the woods and away from the pool of dark red blood.

"You know my wife is very into badger rights and I'm sure she wouldn't approve or your being so happy to have killed one."

Harry chuckled while the kid stammered.

"Oh but it's still awful, I mean I wouldn't have set out to kill some poor innocent creature at all, it's just that if I'd have killed a person, Godric I don't think I would have been able to live with myself."

Auror Davis shoved the kid and rolled her eyes.

"They're winding you up ya big softie!"

We laughed as we made our way back up to the rendezvous point. Eldridge nodded to Harry, thanking him silently for sparing the poor bloke the guilt of being a murderer three weeks into the job, and ordered the Aurors back to HQ for a de-briefing. Harry hung back to look at me in the eye, the fake smiles we had both been wearing melting away instantly.

"So that would've been me then?" he asked, "I'd have killed whoever that was if you hadn't come?"

I shrugged.

"That's the way I understand it."

"But you did come and they still died anyway."

I didn't say anything to that. There was nothing to say.

"You really can't do anything to change what happens can you?"

I shook my head and slipped my wand into my pocket. Harry did the same with his and we stood in silence for a moment before Harry frowned at me.

"You have a daughter?"

* * *

_15th October 2012 (Ron is 24 and 32 and Hermione is 33)_

HERMIONE: I have been sitting at Ron's bedside for eight hours now and he's still not showing any signs of improvement. Ron's Mum and dad have been with me the whole time and the rest of the family come and go at regular intervals but other than that it's just been the four of us in this quiet room waiting for him to open his eyes like we all know he will.

He came back to Ginny hexed within an inch of his life and Healer Wanless has been working on him ever since he was brought in to St Mungo's. Poor Ben's shift ended five hours ago but he's still here. It looks like the cruciatus was used among other things. The thing that has been causing the healers the most problems has been the blood clots. They've tried to thin Ron's blood but until they work out what exact spell was used to thicken it there's not a lot that can be done other than catch the clots as they form and remove them magically.

There was a close call in the last hour and we were all asked to leave while they tried to deal with a clot in the heart that was swelling at an alarming rate at exactly the same time two more were beginning to form around Ron's brain.

Molly and I keep telling each other that we know it's all going to turn out fine, we've both spent plenty of time with Ron after this day and he's his old self so what's the point in worrying eh?

There is not point but we still do. We can't stand to see him suffer. We can't stand to think that that somebody out there in the wizarding world is so determined to hurt him. He's our Ron. Who would want to hurt him?

"Mrs Weasley?" I looked up from Ron's still form and see a very sombre looking Auror Cavendish at the door to Ron's room.

"Hello Lee," I try to give him a smile to let him know that I'm doing ok and he can relax but as he edges into the room Harry steps out from behind him, "Harry, we've been trying to reach you, where have you been?"

Harry doesn't seem to be listening to me, instead he stares at Ron and moved past Cavendish to stand at Ron's bedside and take in the sight of his eerily still best friend. Ron's never been a still sleeper, tossing this way and that and laying in the most undignified positions whenever I wake up beside him in the mornings, so the sight of him laid out and not moving as if he was a living corpse sends shudders through the both of us.

"He was working on another problem when I found him and then he wasn't sure whether or not he should come," Auror Cavendish looked down at his feet and shuffled uncomfortably, "what with the situation with Agent Weasley's sister and him. He didn't want to upset her any more than she must obviously be already."

Although I understood Harry's reasons for wanting to keep out of Ginny's way I wondered if Harry realised just how much Ginny had wanted him there with her when she first arrived at the hospital. She had grown increasingly more anxious until her fiery temper took over again and then she was livid that her ex-husband was so tied up in his feud with her that he would abandon his best friend in his hour of need. Their split had been so hard for Ron and I, torn between family and friends as good as family. Life was getting really tough on everybody these days.

"The thing is Mrs Weasley," Cavendish said as he took another step closer, "we've got a situation in France, a dispute with their ministry and I just thought I'd let you know about it. I didn't know if you would want to...but of course you wouldn't want to leave this one...I mean your husband, this version of your husband. He's your present..." Cavendish huffed and shook his head, "Agh I'm getting this all wrong."

"There's a Ron from the past in a French prison Hermione, I've been trying to get him out but they won't let our ministry interfere with their business," Harry said when he finally pulled himself together to remember what he came here to tell me, "we thought that maybe Fleur could help us negotiate with them and get him out."

I looked down at my own Ron and squeezed his still hand.

"Fleur took Cam home a little while ago, he was causing a scene," I found myself saying.

"Oh right, well I'll go and..."

"If he's travelling can't he just escape like he used to if he got arrested when this first started up again?" I asked as I looked up at Harry and Cavendish who were about to make a move to leave.

Harry lowered his head. Cavendish swallowed.

"Well Mrs Weasley the thing is they've got him on mood stabilisers so he can't induce a panic attack and get himself out of there. We only found out they had him a week ago and he's been in their custody for a month now already."

"What?" I gasped with outrage at the same time as Ron's parents had joined the conversation.

"They can't do that," Ron's father was saying with his paternal outrage almost exploding out of him, "wether or not he's within the jurisdiction of our ministry he still has rights. How dare they!"

"Arthur, keep your voice down," Molly was saying as she tugged at his sleeve.

"Why Molly," Mr Weasley pointed over at Ron in his bed, "we both know I won't wake him up!"

Molly began to cry and her husband suddenly came back to his usual gentle self and embraced her with words of apology and comfort.

"He never said anything to me about this," I whispered as I looked down at my own unconscious Ron, "you said he was a younger Ron?"

Harry nodded.

"That means he's already gone through this and he didn't tell me," I was actually getting angry with him now and I screamed down into his pale face, "You didn't tell me! How could you not tell me you spent a month in prison Ron?"

Auror Cavendish and Harry each grabbed an arm and lifted me bodily out of the hospital room. They set me down in the corridor and Harry grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me hard in they eyes.

"Hermione neither of them need you like this right now. If you want to stay with your Ron then that's fine, I'll go to Fleur's and take her to Calais with me but if you want to come and give the twenty four year old Ron you are so mad at the bollocking you think he deserves then let's go now."

I blinked at Harry and my eyes began to water.

"I'm sorry Hermione, I hate having to talk to you like this but I want him out of there now, not tomorrow, not in another couple of hours, _now!"_ Harry said with determination.

I heaved a shuddering sigh and looked back into Ron's room.

"I can't leave him Harry, I can't I'm sorry."

He smiled at me and pulled me into a hug.

"Hey that's ok, there's nothing to feel guilty about, you know that the twentyfour year old Ron comes back home safe and well but you don't know how this pans out yet do you so don't you feel guilty about staying with him alright?"

I sniffed and nodded just as a slight but confident-looking Auror with permanently startled looking eyes and windswept sandy hair cleared his throat to get Cavendish and Harry's attention.

"Cavendish, Potter I heard about Agent Weasley, the other one I mean, and I think I might be able to help."

Harry smiled at the Auror and introduced us.

"Hermione this is Auror Boyer, Nick this is Mrs Weasley, Ron's wife."

RON: I miss food.

I've been having dreams about food. Nice food. I mean they don't starve me or anything but everything they give me just smells so bad and you should see the state of some of the cheese. If my mother saw cheese like that in her fridge she'd throw it out thinking it had gone off. They gave me this thing called Camembert the other day that was practically liquid.

I let out another sigh, that's all I seem to do every three of four minutes these days; it's the mood stabilising potions they sneak into my water. I did try a hunger strike for the first few days but they'd just wait until I got so weak that I passed out and then poured the stuff down my throat so I didn't bother with it after that. I don't bother with a hell of a lot really.

I saw a spider the other day and I thought 'Oh look, it's a spider, I hate those' and watched as it crawled onto my foot and up my leg and by the time it reached my belly I lost all concentration and began to count how many bricks I have in the wall of my cell.

I sighed again and decided to put my head down for another nap when the door clunked open and a startled-looking man with hair at funny angles wearing Auror robes stepped into my cell and the door closed behind him. He grinned at me and gave a cheery wave.

"Hello Agent Weasley, it's me!"

"Hello you."

Who is this funny looking bloke?

He crouched down in front of me and looked into my eyes for a few seconds. I decided to do the same back. His eyes were blue and he had blonde eyelashes. I started to count them.

_One...two...three...shit he blinked! One...two...three..._

"They've really doped you up haven't they Agent Weasley?"

I could see my reflection in his eyes now and tried to see if I could count my own eyelashes.

"Agent Weasley?"

"What?" I said as I looked at the odd smiley man who was crouching in front of me.

"Do you remember me? I killed the badger," he said cheerfully.

I wondered why somebody would be so proud of killing a protected species of English wildlife. Maybe the badger was an Auror code word for a dangerous Death Eater. I patted him on the arm and smiled.

"Good on ya son!"

He frowned at me.

"Agent Weasley don't you remember me? How old are you now?"

I took in a deep breath and looked down at the floor. I knew this; this was an easy question, how old am I?

"Um..." my eyes drifted over to his feet and I realised that we had something in common, "...hey I've got a pair of boots like that!"

The man lifted my head with both hands and forced me to look him in the eye.

"Oh Godric what _are_ they giving you?"

I sighed again.

"Well they tell me its cheese but I have my doubts, you're not supposed to pour cheese are you?"

"Listen, don't worry alright? I can get you back home where you came from, I might get into a bit of trouble but you did save all our lives that time when that mansion exploded and I killed that badger..."

Again with the badger, why is he so proud of that?

"...you see they wouldn't let the British Aurors in but I've got duel nationalities, my mother is French, so I managed to bluff my way inside telling them I wanted to question you. This means they let me bring a wand in with me and you know what that means don't you Agent Weasley?"

He looked really excited. I was pleased for him. He had got over that whole badger slaying and was now a French diplomat or something, I don't know I wasn't really listening, I just smiled at him and nodded. Then I remembered.

"Twenty four!"

"What?" the startled-looking man's eyes seemed to pop out of his head a little more when he said this.

"I'm twenty four," I smiled, "I always knew I was."

"Yes very good Agent We...wait twenty four? Well there you go then, we haven't met yet, now I understand why you don't know what I'm talking about. I haven't even joined the Aurors yet let alone become a badger murderer."

"The badger lives?" I said, wondering what kind of mystical badger he had managed to find with regenerative powers, "The resurrection of the badger!" I raised both my arms in celebration and the startled looking man smiled at me.

"You poor sod, it's a good job those potions aren't addictive."

I sighed again. This guy was nice enough but he did like to change subjects a little too rapidly for my liking. One minute the badgers dead, then it's not dead, then he wants to know how old I am and then he's blinking so fast I can't count the bricks in the wall. I began to wonder where that spider had disappeared to and glanced around me on the floor.

"Look at me, Agent Weasley, pay attention now," he was saying as he lifted my chin and made me look at the end of his wand, which was pointing at my face.

Wands shouldn't point into my face. Bad things always happen when wands are pointed directly into faces. It always amazed me that Olivander didn't print a warning on the boxes of every wand he sold. Warning: Do not point wand into face. I wondered why I wasn't more worried about this whole wand in face situation. I really should be more worried about things like that these days. I should be a tad concerned about being in prison as well. I never knew that France had such high penalties for streaking in the ferry port.

"I'm going to send some sparks out in front of your eyes, Potter tells me that's a sure fire way to send you back. He said it gives you a magical seizure or something. So here goes alright?"

Potter? You'd think that Harry might have tried to get me out of prison wouldn't you? I wonder where he is.

Suddenly flashes lit up my face and I felt sick, my head was spinning and I couldn't see anything. I was going to be ill, it was coming up, and I couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Ron!"

Hermione was screaming at me for puking on her pristine kitchen floor and I wiped my mouth and crawled over to the bedroom.

"Well it's all very well for you to just go to bed, don't worry about the mess, I'll clean it up shall I?"

I nodded but I don't think she saw me. I reached the foot of the bed and burrowed my way under the covers, tunnelling my way all the way up to the pillow to rest my head and then I sank down into my lovely soft duvet and began to fall asleep.

I was woken a little while later by Hermione crawling in beside me.

"I'm sorry I shouted at you," she was whispering as she snuggled into my back and wrapped her arms around me, "you just made me jump that's all. You'd only just that second disappeared and then you were back. Were you gone for long at your end? You seem so tired."

"Badgers," was all I managed to say before drifting off to sleep again.


	12. WorkRelated Stress

**Work Related Stress**

_16th January 1999 (Ron is 18 Hermione is 19)_

I stared at Auror Davis' field report and tried to find a reason for the discrepancy. I wanted there to be a reason, I had been looking for one for an hour and a half now, and it still wasn't there. I knew I hadn't missed anything and that her field notes for the day of the winter solstice arrests were partially fabricated and I could prove it.

I really didn't want to prove it. I really hated being so good at this job. I really hoped there was a spectacular explanation for her abandoning her post and leaving Auror Parker exposed to the attack that almost crippled him.

I rubbed my head and stared at the report, willing it to change before my eyes.

"Ron?"

I looked up at Lavender's concerned face as she leaned in at my open door and answered her with a much rougher voice than I realised I possessed that afternoon.

"I've really got a lot on today Lavender," I sighed, in no mood to act amateur therapist right now, "can we just...not?"

She looked slightly offended but contained the emotion as best she could and straightened up her stance to a more formal pose.

"I was just letting you know that your sister is here to see you, she wants to know if you have a minute."

I sat back and blinked.

"Oh right, yeah sure send her in, sorry."

"That's fine," she said in quite an uptight manner before disappearing from my open door.

I closed the open file in front of me and waited for Ginny to come in. She was quite a while which I found odd considering she was waiting just feet outside to see me. She eventually stepped inside and closed the door behind her immediately and stared at me with that maternal look of pity mingled with anger she inherited from our mother.

"You look like shit Ron,"

"And you came all this way to tell me," I smiled sarcastically.

She shook her head and crossed the room an a few brisk strides, I got to my feet and we hugged over my desk briefly before she took a seat across from me and leaned forward to get straight to the point.

"Well I finally found out what your little 'spat' was about last year. Hermione told me when we went for lunch today."

I smiled at my sister and folded my arms.

"Funnily enough Gin, Hermione and I had several 'spats' last year, you're gonna have to narrow it down for me."

She really wasn't playing around and fishing for gossip, I could see it in the way she pressed her lips together so tightly they went a very pale shade of pink, and I wondered what had happened at lunch to make her so tense. I also worried about the possible state of Hermione when I came home in a couple of hours time.

"The one where she walked out on you for a week to go back home to her parents."

I didn't say anything, but I did suddenly want to know what Ginny and Lavender had been talking about for so long before she had come in to talk to me.

"I asked after you and Hermione told me that you were getting stressed at work; coming home, eating and going straight to bed. She reckons she hasn't had a proper conversation with you since the New Year and is worried that you're travelling more often and not asking for Lavender's help like last time. She said you promised to tell her everything, even if it was bad, but I want you to tell _me_ Ron. I want you to look _me_ in the eye and tell me that crazy bunny boiler hasn't been up to her old tricks again."

Ginny's voice had been raising toward the end of her little speech and I shushed her frantically.

"What have you said to her?" I demanded and Ginny looked alarmed that my primary concern seemed to be Lavender's feelings, "If you've upset her Ginny I'll..." I was too tired to even threaten my own sister these days, "Please don't tell me you had a go at her before you came in?"

"And what if I did?" she hissed across the desk at me.

"I've only just convinced her to see a counsellor Ginny, she's been getting better ever so slowly and acting like a proper secretary and if you've messed with her head I'm gonna kill you. In fact worse, I won't come to your wedding!"

That was the Weasley brother's winning card in arguments with Ginny ever since the date of the Potter Weasley wedding of the year had been announced as February the fourteenth this year. Ginny was determined that everything would be perfect and her siblings threatening trouble and disruption made her shake with anger and fear until she looked as if she was going to explode.

"You're the best man!" she snapped.

"I never thought I'd hear you say that!" I scoffed.

We glared at each other in a mini standoff before Ginny shook off her sibling annoyance to go back to maternal concern.

"Look I'm sorry but when I heard that she wasn't looking after you when you came back hurt and that she...well she did what she did that time and you still wouldn't transfer her it made me so angry Ron. I don't blame Hermione for needing to take a break from you."

She sighed and wheeled her chair around the desk to sit directly in front of me and stare right into my face.

"Why is she still working here?"

"Ginny, I've never had a secretary who's lasted more than a week with me, it's nice not to have to re-train a new person on top of having to deal with travelling and this bloody job which, I have to say, just gets less and less fun with every day that passes."

"Well you leave then, get another job."

I jumped out of my seat and walked over to the filing cabinet at the far wall by the window.

"People are not queuing up to employ somebody like me Ginny, I only got this job _because_ of the time epilepsy, nobody else will have me."

Ginny looked hurt on my behalf at this and rose from her seat to hurry over to me and give me the hug I must have looked like I needed. I heaved a weighty sigh onto the top of her head and she looked up at me with sad eyes.

"You do know nobody's fooled by this personnel recruitment business don't you?"

I smiled and nodded.

"You really should talk to somebody if it's getting you down Ron."

I released her from our hug and sat on the windowsill.

"It's not that, it's just this thing I'm working on right now, I think I'm going to have to do something nasty to somebody I quite like as a person."

Ginny joined me at the window.

"And you can't talk to Hermione about it at all?"

I shook my head.

"It's top secret ministry business."

"What about Harry can't you...?"

I ran my hand over my hair roughly.

"Harry's the last person I can tell Gin."

"Could you talk to Lavender about it?" Ginny asked without looking at me.

I didn't want to follow this new direction and nodded with reluctance.

"Do you?"

I shook my head.

"Because you don't want to lead her on?"

We sat in silence for a moment before I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a little shake of reassurance.

"Look it's getting sorted today, I'm finishing it all once and for all and then things will get back to normal with me ok?"

"Normal?" Ginny frowned with a slight smile.

"Well for me at least," I shrugged.

We made a little small talk about the wedding preparations and I walked Ginny over to the door. She stopped me just as I was about to turn the handle to let her out.

"She's really doing her job the way she should be?" Ginny said, nodding towards the reception area on the other side of the door where Lavender was working.

"Yeah Gin, she's been much better, gone all professional on me."

"And she's really seeing somebody to get her head right?"

"I set up the appointments myself, she's never missed a single one. She's really been trying Ginny, I just think she's lonely that's all."

Ginny arched an eyebrow.

"I didn't think women that beautiful got lonely."

"You do," I said, "when Harry's away."

She broke into a wide smile at this.

"Did you just call me a beautiful woman?"

"No!" I said with disgust.

"You did!" she said, looking utterly delighted.

"I did not, I called you lonely, you added the beautiful part yourself, I'd have said wizened old hag myself!" I grumbled as I pulled open the door and shoved her out with a chuckle.

While Ginny giggled and walked backwards to the exit I turned to Lavender and nodded to my retreating sister.

"Lavender, if this woman shows up again tell her I'm in a meeting will you?" I grinned.

Ginny rolled her eyes and tried to conceal the look of mistrust she threw at Lavender who simply nodded and focused upon her work. I looked scathingly at Ginny who looked defiant about upsetting Lavender and waved before disappearing around the corner and out of sight.

"You alright Lavender?" I asked as casually as I could.

"Fine thank you Ron," she said without looking up.

I decided to leave it at that and get the hard part of the day over with.

"Could you ask Auror Davis to come up to my office as soon as possible please, send her right in and don't let anybody interrupt us ok?"

Lavender finally looked at me. Her face warmed as a look of sympathy melted her impassive expression.

"Of course Ron, I'm really sorry, she's a friend of Harry's isn't she?"

I swallowed and gave a single nod.

"Yeah."

HERMIONE: I stared at my reflection in the mirror and silently cursed Ginny Weasley and her diabolical scheme. I was being fitted for my bridesmaid dress for her impending nuptials and I don't know why I was bothering. To fit a dress is to make it fit the shape of its wearer in my opinion and this mass of chiffon and silk would be better fitted to a hot air balloon if you asked me. At least the colour was ok, eggshell blue to contrast Ginny's silver wedding dress which didn't resemble any kind of inflatable at all.

"What was she thinking?" I said to myself as I turned sideways on to see if it went in at any place but no, it just went out and kept on going.

I felt like a mushroom cloud.

"Don't' worry Hermione," Neville chuckled from somewhere behind me where he was getting his suit altered, "you can always get your revenge on her when you and Ron get hitched."

I spun around and almost electrocuted myself on all the static I had generated.

"What do you mean when we get hitched? Can you imagine Ron going in for all this? He's still reeling from the Yule ball and that was just a dance."

Neville laughed and shook his head.

"Oh come on he must have told you."

I frowned.

"Told me what?"

"That the two of you are married in the future, he's seen it hasn't he?"

I felt myself blushing and turned away to scowl at myself in the mirror again. It was true, there is a future where Ron and I are married, but we never really talked about it. I don't like to feel as if all my choices have been made for me already. Maybe it's my freedom fighter instinct or something but when Ron tells me that on such and such a day I will be wearing the dress we are looking at in a shop I do everything in my power not to buy it.

I avoid the shop, I return the dress unworn when it is given to me as a birthday gift by my mother, and six months pass by without me ever seeing that dress again. Then I am at a big ministry function and I excuse myself to go to the lavatory to freshen up where I am splashed by a faulty tap and what I'm wearing is soaked through. One of the female employees comes in with her outfit, bemoaning that she never even got to change before her ailing grandmother called to summon her back home and offers me the loan of her outfit so it didn't go to waste and then there I am standing before a time travelling Ron in the dress he told me I was wearing that night and I realise that I have no free will at all.

It's not that I don't want to marry Ron, it's just that I'd like to feel that if we ever did decide to spend the rest of our lives together it was our decision and not a pre ordained plan. Fate is all very romantic when you don't know it's coming but I sometimes wonder if I will ever be able to surprise Ron again. No woman wants her man to find her predictable does she?

"Hermione I was wondering," Neville was saying, shaking me out of my thoughts, "y'see I want to bring somebody to the wedding but I wouldn't want to make things awkward for you or Ron, for anyone really, and I just thought I'd ask you before I asked her."

I gave Neville a quizzical frown and rustled my way towards him from within my frilly tent.

"You're not making any sense Neville, why are you asking me if you can bring your girlfriend to Harry's wedding?"

"Oh she's not my girlfriend, she doesn't like me like that she's just a friend, and she never will be anything else. I'm not deluding myself to think I could get someone like that even if she is a little flaky right now."

I laughed and rubbed Neville's arm, stopping as soon as I heard the crackle of static charging up again.

"Any woman would be lucky to have you as a date Neville, don't put yourself down."

"No but we really would just be going as friends because she's well, there's someone else involved and I don't want to hurt any feelings or step on any toes or anything, but she's a good friend of mine and she's going through a hard time and I thought I'd take her to the wedding to cheer her up."

Something about what Neville was saying began to make me feel queasy.

"Neville who are you talking about?"

He swallowed.

"Lavender Brown."

My brain went into overload and I tried to rewind everything Neville had just said in his preamble to the big question. There's someone else involved, she's going through a hard time, she doesn't like me that way, a little flaky...

"You want to take Lavender to Harry's wedding?" I repeated for my own benefit.

Neville shook his head rapidly and turned away from me to fuss with his collar in front of the mirror.

"No you're right it was stupid of me to ask. After all that stuff with Ron last year I should never have brought it up."

"What 'stuff' with Ron?" I snapped as I turned him around forcibly.

"Well the problems I mean. She had feelings for him and he obviously didn't and she would always show up at Dean and Parvati's place in tears and then Ron told Dean what had been happening and Parvati tried to get her to change jobs or see somebody but she just got worse and Parvati and her kind of drifted apart so she started coming round to me and Seamus and we've kinda been looking after her."

I looked down at my feet. Things had obviously been just as bad as Ron had tried to explain to me if Lavender didn't even have Parvati's friendship anymore and had resorted to hanging out with Neville at his place. Not that Neville was any kind of last resort friend to have, not at all, but he wasn't really the kind of person somebody like Lavender would ordinarily give the time of day to.

I really did want to be the bigger person and tell Neville that I would be fine with it but I wasn't fine with it at all. I wasn't fine with spending time in the company of somebody so infatuated with my boyfriend that she was in therapy because of it and I knew that Ron could only just cope with her at work let alone in a social context as well, plus the little issue of my having just told the bride to be all about Lavender's lowest moment. Ginny had been livid, both for me having somebody making a play for my boyfriend and for her brother being 'molested' as she called it while he was unconscious.

Molested, it made it sound even worse when she had put it like that, and I didn't think I would ever be able to get over that having happened.

"I'm really sorry Neville, I wish I could be bigger about this but I don't think it's a good idea."

"No of course it's not, you're right and I'm stupid, I was just talking to her last night and she was telling me that she was feeling like her old self again and I...but you're absolutely right though. It's inappropriate."

I turned back to look at what I could fit of my dress in the mirror. It was worth keeping Lavender away just so she didn't see me in this revolting outfit.

RON: Beverly Davis, the Auror I had spent most of January desperately trying not to find guilty of abandoning her post, sat opposite me with an expectant look on her face. She was pretty, despite the scar on her upper lip from a childhood accident in the muggle world that could have been magically healed without leaving a mark on her, and her long blonde hair was tied back in a bouncy ponytail. She was almost as tall as I was and there was barely enough room under my desk for my legs let alone hers.

I picked up her fabricated field report and tossed it to her.

"Your report from the night of the winter solstice."

She nodded.

"I recognise it."

"Could I have the real one please Auror Davis?" I asked bluntly.

She blinked once before sliding the field report back across my desk to me.

"There you go."

"No this one is the fictional version where you stay where you are supposed to stay the whole time and there is a freak accident that you were in no position to have stopped. I want the version where you abandon your post, nearly paralysing your partner due to your not being there when a Death Eater who was supposed to be in your custody attacked him. That's the story I want to hear."

She smiled at me as if she thought this was a game we were playing or a training exercise.

"I don't tell stories."

I leaned across the desk and spoke in a low voice, I saw her eyelid flicker and she shifted ever so slightly in her seat.

"This was very well done," I pointed down at her file, "you covered everything. You have witnesses, you have all the times, names and places exactly where you should have them and bloody hell Bev if you didn't describe the smell right too. That really is the mark of a perfectionist, you _really_ didn't want to get caught did you?"

"You can't get caught if you never do anything wrong," she smiled again, her tone even and unwavering.

"You see you just missed one little thing, one thing that seems totally insignificant but it blows your entire cover story out of the water, and if I gave you this report to read five times you yourself wouldn't spot your mistake but then again that isn't your job, that's mine."

She laughed nervously.

"You're giving me a bollocking for a spelling error?"

"No Miss Davis I'm sacking you for dereliction of duty and conspiracy to withhold information from the ministry."

She looked as if she was about to throw up. We stared at each other for some time before I huffed and tapped the recorder with my wand.

"Off the record," the magical recording device stopped, "where the fuck were you Bev?"

She dropped her cool act immediately and hissed over the desk to me.

"Sacking me Ron? Can't it just be a warning?"

"That's not answering my question."

"I was with you!"

I blinked and sat back in my chair. That was certainly a new one on me.

"Excuse me?"

"You Ron, you called me away from my position that night, and you told me that no matter how good my cover story was you'd see through it in a second and bugger me you did!"

I was beginning to understand now and looked over Bev's shoulder to be sure that the door was still closed firmly.

"What exactly are you telling me?"

"I am telling you that you are Agent Weasley, an undercover operative for the ministry monitoring corruption in the Auror department, you have a birthmark in the shape of a kidney and the colour of a grey bruise on the inside of your left thigh right at the very top and when you are thirty three you will be stabbed in the gut and transport to my mission where you call me out of position to heal you and tell me all those things. Well apart from the birthmark, I could see that for myself what with you being completely naked as a result of your time travelling which is also top secret and how could I know that if I'm lying?"

She was almost breathless as she completed her explanation of events that night. I looked at her and felt a wave of incredible relief washing over me.

"So you typed up this cover story to cover...for me?"

She nodded.

"I knew I couldn't put your name in the report, I couldn't put you at the location and blow your cover and I thought I had done a pretty good job of covering my own arse but apparently you're really good at your bloody job."

I heaved a deep sigh and shook my head with a smile.

"Am I really sacked?" she said, looking crushed.

"No," I said happily, "we have a contingency plan for when I interfere with procedure while on my travels, you're fine, it's all ok don't worry."

She sagged in her chair and closed her eyes, mouthing a silent thank you to my ceiling.

"Just one thing though," I asked, "this stabbing, was I going to be ok?"

She smiled and nodded as she sat back up in her chair.

"Yeah you were going to be fine which is more than I can say for Parker."

I frowned at this. Auror Parker was the injured party in this whole fiasco and I wondered why I called Davis over to assist me at his expense. Bev was also wondering about this apparently.

"If you were coming from the future you knew what would happen to him by calling me away. I mean I know he's going to be fine and there was no permanent damage but that was a nasty little hex that Death Eater hit him with and he's lucky he can walk."

"So it wasn't an accident then?"

"You know it wasn't," she said, "and I wasn't around to see what really happened because I was busy helping you."

I nodded and thought about why I would have risked Parker the way I did.

"Thank you by the way," I said absent-mindedly.

"You're welcome," she shrugged, "look don't beat yourself up about it too much, I mean you knew he was going to be alright in the end, and you were coming from a future where you obviously thought it was a calculated risk. I trust your judgement Agent Weasley."

I smiled at her while still pondering the significance of me allowing somebody to get hurt. Suddenly my eyes were wide and something Bev had said before came slamming back to the front of my mind and I looked at her in horror.

"What?" she said, gripping the desk anxiously, "What is it?"

"How did you get close enough to see my birthmark?"


	13. All The Places You've Been

**All The Places You've Been**

_29th March 2005 (Ron is 29, Hermione is 25)_

HERMIONE: I heard a groan from outside the front door and drew my wand before answering.

"Help me!"

I fell to my knees and grabbed Ron's hand gently. He looked dreadful. He was bleeding heavily from the head and one of his arms appeared to be broken, his skin was covered with scratches and fresh bruises and he looked older than my Ron.

"Where are you coming from?" I asked him before I set about trying to heal his head wound.

"September 21st 2009," he wheezed.

That sounded bad, like one or two of his ribs were broken and restricting his normal breathing.

"Then I don't know where I was," he wheezed again.

"Don't try to speak Ron, I think you might have internal injuries," I said as I abandoned the attempt to heal his head and focused on his chest instead.

"In the air Hermione. Has it happened to me before?"

I frowned at this meaningless couple of sentences.

"What?"

"When is this?" he winced as he tried to take in his surroundings a little better.

"March the twenty-ninth 2005 now stop fidgeting around Ron, I mean it."

He didn't seem to be taking any notice of me. He gripped my arm just above the elbow tightly and looked into my eyes.

"It'll happen more than once Hermione, it'll be bad, and you've got to prepare yourself to be able to fix me up. Ben can't always get to me in time."

"Shut up Ron I'm working!" I snapped, I didn't like to hear him talking this way.

"How old am I now? Twenty-four? It'll happen soon Hermione and I won't be awake to tell you. I fall out of the sky a lot..." he shuddered with pain and I tried to ignore him and continue with the healing spells but I couldn't tell him to stop talking, I wanted to know what to prepare for, "...because I've flown a lot. This..." his face contorted with pain, "...this time I landed on the Quiddich pitch at Hogwarts again, next time..." the pain was coming and going in spasms now, "...the next time for you and the...the first time for me, I'll be really high up. I think it was from flying the car to school that day. It'll be worse and you've got to..."

I tried to get him to stop, he was hurting so badly, but he kept on pushing himself to finish what he needed to say.

"...you've got to..."

"Ron I get it ok, I'll get some more training in first aid but you've got to lie still for me right now please," I begged him and hoped that I'd at least made his chest more comfortable as I returned my focus to his still heavily bleeding head.

He tightened his grip on my arm, his arms were even more powerful then they were now, and he stared right into me with ferocious intensity.

"Fred and George," he struggled to say, "get them to learn C.P.R. I drown soon."

My eyes bulged in my head as Ron's eyes began to glaze over and he got that dizziness that always indicated he was about to disappear again.

"Hogwarts Lake...second task...time travel to the bottom and drown...Hagrid pulls me to the surface and I travel back to the twins flat before he can get me to Pomfrey...I can't see you Hermione!" he said in a panic.

"I'm here Ron, I'm right here, it's all going to be alright you know that don't already otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell me all this now."

His eyes almost fixed on me as he whispered.

"Anywhere I've ever been Hermione, I can go back there at any time in my life..." he began to disappear, my hands visible through his torso where I had been supporting him, and all I heard was his last few words hissed to me with devastating resignation," ...it's going to kill me."

And then he was gone.

* * *

_19th May 1999 and 9th October 1980 (Ron is 19)_

"Ron your brother is here to see you."

I looked up from my desk to see Lavender peering around my office door with her efficient professional look on her face, she was obviously worried that my brothers hated her almost as much as Ginny did, and I slid the field report I had been going over underneath a personnel file and a chart about pay scales. I wondered which one of them it was.

"You're going to have to narrow that down for me."

"It's Percy."

I stared at her as if she'd got confused and put the wrong name to the wrong face.

"Are you sure?"

Percy stepped through the door and stood behind Lavender, causing her to jump with fright.

"Hello Ronald."

I looked back at Lavender who was glaring at Percy for just barging in before she had cleared it with me and gave her a nod.

"Thanks Lavender."

As she left with an annoyed huff Percy strode across the room and took a seat across from me at my desk.

"Take a seat Perce," I said, amazed at his boldness, I didn't remember a time in the last few years when he had abandoned his manners.

"Ronald I don't have time to waste with niceties," he said in an impatient tone.

"When do you ever?" I snorted, he was still being such an arse to mum that it was all I could do not to kick him in the shin under my desk.

"I just need to ask you something on behalf of the minister, I did ask father to approach you but he became quite offensive and threatening towards me so I decided to bypass him and bring you the offer myself."

So the minister was involved and dad wouldn't be a part of it. I knew this proposal was going to be something bad.

"What offer is this?" I said coolly.

"Well the minister seems to have received certain confidential information about a...well a medical condition of yours," Percy looked at me expectantly, maybe hoping I'd share this information with him too, I just froze and tried not to appear alarmed that somebody had just sold me out to the minister of magic, "I told the minister that as far as I knew your only condition was drunkenness."

What an arsehole.

"That's not me anymore Percy."

"Funny," he scoffed as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and seemed to be addressing a gathering of amused people who were all watching these proceedings rather than myself, "it was you last Sunday when you tried to beat down my door wearing nothing but a robe."

I folded my arms and sat back in my chair.

"Like I said, that's not me anymore."

"Well anyway, the minister wants to run some tests on you, something about finding a gene the unspeakables want to isolate and clone. It's a muggle thing that they want to adapt to the magical world. He said that due to you and your friends being responsible for the destruction of the ministry's entire collection of time-turners you owe us."

I almost grabbed him by the front of his robes and haled him across my desk to bellow into his arrogant face.

"I _owe_ you? I owe the ministry? If the ministry hadn't been in bloody denial we'd never have had to go to the Department of Mysteries at all that night. Most of us nearly died, including your sister might I remind you, and I owe _you?"_

Percy pushed his chair back away from the desk and got to his feet.

"Well I warned the minister you would be like this."

"What," I said as I jumped to my own feet, "justifiably outraged? Yes!"

Percy was waking back to the door now and I was only too happy to shove the bastard out of it.

"I don't know how you managed to get such a responsible job within this department Ronald, I really don't, and somebody else has obviously found that very suspicious if they've gone straight to the minister with this..._information_ about your medical condition."

Percy had opened the office door and was stepping through it as the thought that somebody was watching me within the ministry, somebody who wasn't supposed to be at the very least, began to cause me to panic internally.

"It really tears you up doesn't it Percy," I growled at him as I tried to get to the door to stop him closing it behind him, "the minister knows something about your own brother that you don't and neither of us will bloody well tell you what it is?"

Percy closed the door with a bang and I grabbed at the door handle but my hand went right through it. I couldn't see straight and I felt myself sinking to the floor as my head spun and I was swallowed up into a musty darkness.

No it wasn't just musty, it was downright rank, the air seemed stale and it was incredibly stuffy. I got to my feet and waved my arms in front of my face to try and clear the air just ahead of me. I felt several cobwebs breaking against my skin and yelped before stubbing my toe on something solid and hopping up and down on one leg before falling over something soft on the ground and hitting the gritty floor with a thud.

"Oh sodding marvellous!" I hissed as I massaged what felt like a broken toe and tried to acclimatise my eyes to the darkness.

There were thin shards of sunlight slicing through the dusty air and hitting the brown dusty floor in various places but nothing substantial enough for me to gage wherever it was in my life I had just reappeared.

I got up and felt around me, my fingers curled around some kind of light fabric, maybe a table cloth I thought, and I pulled it around me before extending my arm ahead of me to feel my way around this room or shed or whatever it was. I found what felt like a smooth stone wall and let my hand glide along the surface of it while I followed along and silently preyed for a doorway to appear sometime soon.

Nothing.

Why did a room that nobody can get into or out of even exist I ask myself? I couldn't just disapparate outside as I didn't know where I was and I didn't know when I was so I couldn't show up at the Burrow. Was I supposed to just wait it out until I went back to my office?

"Percy!" I suddenly snarled under my breath, "You git this is all your fault."

If he hadn't wound me up so much I would still be in my office right now sharing an uncomfortable conversation with Lavender. Well maybe this wasn't so bad after all.

I was starting to see things a little better now and thought I could see something glinting just beside one of the tiny pinpricks of sunlight. I fumbled my way over to it, stepping on something crunchy with my bare feet along the way and having to tell myself aloud that it was just crisps and not insects of any kind, before reaching the smooth round disc and discovering that it was an ornate mirror.

"Yes!" I said, not due to my vanity but because I could now throw some light on my situation.

I held the mirror in one of the thicker beams of light and angled the mirror to scan the walls of the place. I had been right, the walls were a kind of sadly coloured smooth stone and there were cobwebs draped everywhere like bunting at a party. I shuddered and tried not to think about how many spiders were in here with me. I angled the mirror about the middle of the room, wondering what it was I had broken my toe on earlier, and there sat a golden sarcophagus shrouded in a layer of dust and cobwebs but clearly recognisable to me as the brilliantly preserved mummified remains of the great wizarding pharaoh Zimba Redkez.

I almost laughed.

"I'm in a fucking pyramid! Oh Bill, what did you have to bring me here for all those years ago?"

Well it was all those years in the future really as the tomb had yet to be discovered. I sat down on an ostentatiously decorated throne and rubbed my head.

"Oh you are kidding me. Oh top of everything else I can now show up inside pyramids in Egypt can I?"

The throne suddenly passed through my body and I fell with a thud on my back in my office once again. I cursed and the door opened, slamming right into my side and causing me to yell out in pain.

"Oh sorry Ron, I thought I heard you come back," Lavender winced as she watched me rolling over and clutching my hip, "I didn't mean to hit you sorry."

I just shook my head and massaged what was going to be one hell of a nasty bruise.

"Clothes Lavender, please just get me my clothes."

She hopped over my body and to my desk where what I had been wearing when I had disappeared was now folded and stacked neatly. I got to my feet and pulled a cloak from the cloak stand to cover myself with while I hobbled across the office to take the bundle from her. Seeing my discomfort in walking she looked down and threw her hands up to her face, looking away with a squeal of disgust.

"Ron your toe!" she pointed shakily.

"What?" I said before looking down at my foot.

"It's pointing upwards!" she said, going very pale.

I made quite an unmanly sound as I held my injured toe out in front of me and hopped backwards on my good leg, almost as if I was trying to run away from my own foot, and struggled not to be sick. My big toe was bloody and at a forty-five degree angle to all the other ones. When I break a toe I really _break_ a toe!

"What are you standing there for fix it, fix it, fix it!" I said still hopping up and down and trying not to look at it.

Lavender flapped her hands in front of her face and winced.

"But it's so disgusting!"

I was losing any composure I might have managed to hold on to up to that point.

"Well get Ben then!"

Lavender pulled out her wand and tried to calm herself down, not very successfully I might add, as she approached my extended foot.

"No I'll do it, I can do this, I'm doing it now."

"Just _do _it!" I said in a higher pitch than I would ever like a woman to hear me using.

Lavender swished and flicked her wand at my damaged toe.

"_Corrigo sano!"_

There was a flash and I felt my toe go numb and then hot before hearing a loud crack and looking down to see that it was straight again.

"_Scourgify!"_ Lavender said as she cleaned the blood away to reveal a perfectly healed and healthy toe.

I put my foot down on the floor and wriggled all five toes on that foot before sighing and catching Lavender doing the exact same thing. We smiled at each other and then laughed.

"Sorry about that Lavender," I said as I pulled the cloak around myself a little more, "it just kind of...took me by surprise!"

"You and me both!" she said with a giggle, she still looked very pale, "I'm sorry I freaked out so badly it's just," she looked down at my healed toe, "I didn't think something like that was possible."

I grabbed my clothes from the floor, where Lavender had dropped them in shock, and she began to make her way back outside to give me some privacy.

"Believe me as far as I'm concerned anything's possible!" I said with a shake of the head.

She laughed and began to pull the door closed.

"So where were you this time?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I huffed with amusement.

"Well you were gone a whole day so I'll just send Hermione an owl, let her know you're back."

"Thanks," I said as she closed the door and I dropped the cloak away from me to begin to get dressed.

This was _all_ Percy's fault.

* * *

_A/N I just want to thank you all for sticking with me on this one. It's just as hard to write as it is for you to read but you know me and the challenges I set myself don't you? At least nobody can accuse me of just doing the same thing over and over again._

_I just realised that this is my 10th fic and I've only been doing this since September last year. I do churn these things out at an alarming rate don't I?_

_So I hope that the confusion isn't too much for you and that as I solve some of the puzzles I've set up for Ron and Hermione you begin to understand this all a bit more._

_Oh and some general responses to reviewers... No I am not taking any kind of medication. I can't tell you what the significance of Gorecki is until the very end I'm afraid. There IS an explanation for a certain little red head travelling to 1998 and another no-so-little red head travelling so far forward but you don't get it just yet!_

_Thanks and much gratitude to all who review as always._

_Shari_


	14. Sweet Nothings and Absent Friends

**Sweet Nothings and Absent Friends**

_5th February 1999 (Ron is 18 and 7 months old, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: I have been fighting sleep for fifteen minutes or so now. The rain has finally stopped and the sun has forced its way through a gap in the clouds, through our living room window, and onto our faces. Ron is dozing quietly and I lay my head on his chest and try not to let the sound of his heartbeat and the rhythmic rise and fall of his ribcage lull me off into the land of nod myself.

As long as Ron's around there is never any danger of me suffering from insomnia. I once got a little bit giddy and over romantic and told him his life was like a lullaby to me, he laughed so hard and teased me so shamelessly that I wanted to punch him into a time before I had opened my big love-struck mouth, but then he went and did the most romantic thing he had ever done in his life. I look at my engagement ring and all the musical notes engraved all the way around it, an Irish lullaby, and smile.

"I love you Ron," I whisper into his chest.

He chuckles.

"Your breath is ticklish."

I look up, he still has his eyes closed as if he doesn't want to be awake again but still wants to talk to me at the same time. I kiss him on the side of the neck and whisper again.

"I love you."

He smiles.

"Whatever it is you want I'm not doing it."

Typical.

I kiss the nape of his neck and then further up and once again just below his jaw line and I whisper into the tips of his hair where they hang messily before my lips.

"I love you."

He turned his head downwards to press his lips to mine, still struggling to remain in a state of semi-sleep.

"I'll do some things if you're in the mood."

I shift a little further up his torso so I can cover his lips with my own and kiss him into opening his eyes. He moans and I feel his hand in my hair and our lips smile against the others.

"What brought on all the love?" Ron asks as he finally looks at me with sleepy eyes.

"I was listening to your lullaby," I breathed before pressing my lips softly against his again.

"I wrote it just for you," he said as he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

"You're a composer?" I laughed.

He nods with sincerity.

"Oh yeah, in fact I was hoping you could help me with this bit of drum rhythm I wanted to get down."

He was up to something, I could see it coming from a mile away, but I couldn't work out what it was.

"Help you how?" I asked with great suspicion.

"Well," he nuzzled into the side of my neck and I nearly lost all reason, "my lullaby for you is played on my heart and my lungs yeah?"

"Uh-huh," he was breathing on my sensitive spot, long hot breaths, I struggled to concentrate.

"This rhythm needs to be played on your body."

My heart did a back flip.

"What's this rhythm sound like then and why does it have to be played on my body?"

He looked so mischievous now I knew I was going to either jump him or kill him.

"'Cause the symbols sound can only be made by a woman."

I raised my eyebrow and gestured for him to demonstrate. That he did.

"Bum-tit-tit-bum-tit-tit..."

I punched him on the arm and he howled with laughter before pulling me on top of him and tickling the sensitive area on my neck with the movement of his lips and the heat of his escaping breath.

"I love you too."

I grabbed a handful of his scruffy hair and held his head firmly in place while I kissed the breath out of him. He was literally gasping for air when I pulled back again and I shifted my weight upon his lap causing him to close his eyes and lift my skirt.

"Don't ever stop loving me," I whispered as I set about ridding him of those unnecessary trousers and pants of his.

"Never," he sighed as I lowered myself down upon him.

"Don't ever stop playing me that lullaby," I started to kiss every inch of his bare skin that I could reach.

"Not as long as I can hold a tune," he mumbled as he rested his hand firmly onto my buttocks.

"Don't ever leave me," I gasped as we started making love.

He didn't say anything.

Long after we had settled into each other's arms and our breathing returned from frantic to normal Ron's eyelids started to drift closed once again. I prodded him hard.

"Ouch, what did you do that for?"

"Answer me," I said, suddenly angry and hurt.

He stared at me and blinked.

"Sorry I must have dozed off, what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything just now, I'm waiting for you to respond to what I said before," I felt myself suddenly shaking.

Ron rubbed my arms and kissed me on the lips with worry.

"I love you, you know I love you I tell you often enough, I _told_ you."

"Not that," I snapped and pulled away from him before shoving him hard and holding him down beneath me. He could throw me off effortlessly what with his rapidly developing upper-body strength but he just lay there, totally submissive, "Promise me you won't ever leave me."

He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

"Not this again Hermione please."

"Promise me!" I demanded as I pounded once upon his chest.

"I can't! You know I would if I could but I can't babe, I can't help this happening to me, I can't control it anymore than you can and I never know where I'm going to end up. You know all of this Hermione why are you starting with this crap again?"

"Your coming back to me is not crap Ron!" I tried in vain not to yell, "I'm sick of seeing you in the state you were in last week."

He looked exasperated and I knew I was being irrational but I didn't care.

"That wasn't me!" he growled as he sat up and began to pull his clothes on again.

"But it _will_ be."

He pulled on his trousers and threw his shirt down to the floor with rage.

"Well for somebody who doesn't want me to vanish you're doing a pretty poor job of keeping me here y'know?"

I pulled a throw from the sofa around myself and stormed past him and into our bedroom.

"Don't you dare blame me for causing you stress Ronald. I don't want you to go anywhere and you know it!"

I slammed the door and leant my back against it, closing my tearful eyes and struggling to keep myself together.

"You think I do?" he hit the door with either a fist or a foot, "You think I like getting the shit kicked out of me for suddenly appearing naked in Nocturn bloody Alley? Do you think you were the only one having a hard time with this stuff last week? Three and a half miles in a hurricane I had to walk, naked Hermione, naked and starving and I still don't know where the hell I was and you think I _choose_ to do that?"

I opened my eyes and wiped away the tears that burned. This was so unfair, to both of us, and I hated fighting with Ron like this. It was so pointless and all it achieved was that we both felt guilty afterwards. I gasped as I looked at our bed and saw a small, naked, red-haired baby boy gurgling happily beside a yellow damp patch on our sheets.

"Oh Ron," I sighed as I crossed the bedroom and lifted the little version of my husband to be into my arms, "how long have you been here?"

The baby yawned and curled his entire hand around my thumb and I bit my lip before searching for a blanket to wrap him in. I used one of Ron's old Weasley jumpers that was hanging on the back of a chair and carried him over to the door.

Ron as a baby would occasionally show up in other places outside the Burrow but it was unusual. Molly had told me how terrified she had been every time her little Ronnie had disappeared during the first year of his life until Dumbledore intervened and that she felt some kind of comfort to be there for him when he re-appeared all this way in the future. Baby Ron and adult Ron never seem to be able to travel into a time covered by Dumbledore's spell so the infant Ron Weasley was never in any danger of appearing inside the chamber of secrets with a basilisk for company although he could show up in the chamber of secrets a week next Thursday which wasn't quite so comforting.

I kissed the baby on the top of the head and opened the bedroom door. Ron, the older one, had been leaning against it and fell through the open door onto his back and stared up at the baby and me. He blinked.

"Merlin, how long were you in there babe?"

I rolled my eyes and stepped over him, carrying the baby towards the fireplace and reaching up for some floo powder, before I heard him getting to his feet and joining us.

"Very funny, it's you my dear comedian, I'll get you to your mum's you know how she loves you when you're this age."

I threw a handful of the floo powder into the fireplace and said the name of the Weasley family home. The flames turned green and Ron brushed against my elbow. I turned to look at him, he looked as ashamed of himself as he had done when he had made me cry in the first year at Hogwarts, and my heart melted.

"Hermione I'm sorry I didn't mean..."

I interrupted him by pressing my free hand to his lips and smiling at him.

"I see you hurting often enough without being the cause of it too."

He shook his head adamantly.

"No this isn't your fault."

"And it isn't yours," I smiled sadly, "I'll take the baby to the Burrow and get right back here for a chat alright?"

He nodded and tickled his baby self absent-mindedly.

"I really love you y'know?" he said to me.

"I know," I said before leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

I stepped into the fire and transported the baby to his mother, be it for five minutes or five hours we weren't to know, and rushed back to Ron without wasting much time on small talk.

As I stepped out of the fireplace I saw the crumpled pair of trousers he had been wearing on the floor at my feet, I picked them up, they were still warm.

He had been taken from me once again; I hoped it wouldn't be too long for either of us.

* * *

_22nd August 2007 and 26th October 1999 (Ron is 27, Hermione is 20 and 27)_

"Shit!"

RON: It had been all I had been able to say ever since it had happened.

"Did you get a look at him Ron?" Harry was saying as he tried to break the steel pipe he was shackled to from the other side of the room, causing his wrist to bleed.

I was about to go under the water again to search for the wire I had just dropped in the middle of picking the lock on my own shackles and didn't respond. I took in a deep breath and exhaled it as I sank down and began to fumble around for the closest thing to a needle in a haystack I'd ever come to have to look for in my career as Auror investigator. The water was too murky and the wire was too small, I was never going to be able to find it.

I came back out of the water, gasping for air and wiping water from my eyes while I heard Harry yelling for help again.

"Eldridge! Davis! Cavendish you bone idle sod where the hell are you all?"

I spat the foul tasting water from my lips and shouted across to Harry.

"I told you, the mole's sent them all to the wrong place, you were supposed to be with them."

"What and leave you on your own to deal with him?" Harry scoffed before turning back to try and loosen the pipe again.

"Fat lot of bloody good you're doing me now Potter!"

Harry glared at me while more water gushed into our underground prison.

"I could have just induced a panic attack and travelled out of here but I can't do that now 'cause you're stuck down here too!"

"Well bloody do it then you great prat, vanish and come back and get me out of here, what have you been waiting for?" Harry snapped, the panic setting in now that the water had risen to our chests.

I kicked out at the wall in frustration before bellowing back my answer to him.

"I could be gone for hours Harry, what good would that do you?"

We both stared at each other for a couple of tense seconds before turning away and trying to find another way to get out of this mess.

I had been after this guy for five years now and I still didn't have a clue who he was or why he was jeopardising the Auror programme with leaks and misinformation. I had finally seen him, from the back and in a hood but I'd seen him all the same, while trying to warn the Auror squad not to follow the bogus order to attack an abandoned temple, which I was still convinced was probably booby-trapped, but the only one I'd been able to get to before they disapparated was Harry.

Just as I was going to instruct him to go after the squad and tell them to abort the mission I'd been stunned in the back and the next thing I knew Harry and I were in some dark underground cell getting the crap beaten out of us. I don't know what happened to our wands but Harry told me that the mole had tried to immobilise him and leave him back at the apparition point, wanting to take me alone, but he had fought him until getting blindsided and the both of us were taken instead.

From what the mole said I'd done something to seriously piss him off and he wanted to bring shame to the whole department in revenge. Revenge for what I don't know. I assumed he was one of many over the years I had exposed and got tossed out of the department. Maybe I'd even got him put away to do some time in Azkaban, that'd cause him to hate me enough I suppose.

"Ron," Harry sputtered across the room to me, shaking out his wet hair and trying to wipe the droplets of water from the lenses of his glasses as he spoke, "listen there's no point in both of us copping it today. Do your thing mate, get yourself out of here."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"And explain to my little sister that I just left her husband to drown? I'd rather die here Harry thank you very much."

Harry laughed and I smiled at him briefly before shaking my head. I pulled at the shackle around my own bloody wrist for a few seconds before looking around the room again for some way to free ourselves or get help.

"Besides," I mumbled with determination as I returned to the brute force plan again and lifted my feet off the floor and planted them against the wall, pushing away as hard as I could while pulling on the pipe with both hands as I did, "I've seen you, I've seen both of us in our thirties, I know we don't die here."

I slipped and plunged back down into the water, the shackle slicing a new cut into my wrist as I fell, and pushed off of the floor and broke the surface again.

"I just can't figure out how we don't die here just yet," I coughed.

Harry was just barley keeping his head above water now, being much shorter than me it was always going to submerge him first and he smiled over at me in between gasps.

"Don't worry, take your time mate."

I was about to answer him when I felt my stomach churn and the cereal I had for breakfast rising up to the back of my throat and tried not to do what I thought I was about to do.

"Oh no, not now please..." I gasped before vomiting and gripping the pipes as hard as I could while the dizziness hit me and my vision blurred.

"Let it take you Ron," Harry was calling over to me, "come back for me, you'll only be gone a minute I know it..."

His voice was nothing but a ghost of an echo as the water and the shackle was sucked away from me and I blinked to clear my vision and find myself soaking wet and bleeding from the wrist in an unfamiliar kitchen. I was sick again.

"Oh feck me Weasley," Seamus' voice exclaimed as he walked through the kitchen door to see me naked and puking on his kitchen floor, "Neville, Ron's just showed up in a right state, get Hermione round here now!"

I struggled back to my feet and slipped, the small puddle of water I had caused on the slick ceramic tile was like ice, and Seamus caught me mid-fall while wincing at his having to hold on to a naked man at the same time.

"I've got to get back," I panted as Seamus grabbed a sheet from the huge pile of unwashed laundry that was stacked up in the corner, completely concealing what was actually a washing machine beneath it, and threw it around me.

"It's alright mate, calm down and let me get you something to put on," he said while Neville ran back out of the fireplace with Hermione rushing behind him.

"No I've got to get back to Harry _now!_"

"Now is 1999 Weasley, you've no need to hurry anywhere," Seamus tried to calm me down while Hermione took charge and pulled me over to their sofa and Neville ran to his bedroom to grab me something to wear and Seamus set about mopping up his wet, bloody and vomit-covered floor with a pair of Neville's trousers.

I found myself forced down into an armchair where I shook as if I had just be seated in a deep freeze rather than a comfortable spot beside the fireplace and Hermione took my face in her hands and forced me to look at her.

"Tell me what's wrong, tell me what you need Ron."

"I need to get back to him Hermione, I have to go back there now..." Hermione clamped her hand over my mouth before I started rambling in panic.

"You know that the amount of time you spend here makes no difference to the amount of time you're gone back where you're from Ron so stop panicking about that until you get back ok. I don't want to let anything happen to Harry either but you can't do anything about that from here can you?"

I shook my head and she lowered her hand.

"When am I?"

"1999, when are you coming from?"

"August 22nd 2007, tell me to write that down and remember it, tell me there's a mole and to search for an underground cell. You've got to remember to do this Hermione."

She blinked at me and took my shaking hands in hers.

"I will do but you already know that I tell you don't you? You've already been told."

I lowered my head and cursed under my breath. I was already acting on my own tip off as well as the information I had found out that day, there was nothing I could do. I'd already done it.

"How do I stop this?" I pleaded with Hermione in desperation, "I do stop it but I just don't know what it is I'm supposed to do."

She hushed me and pulled me into her, holding me tightly and muttering something to Neville about putting the clothes down on the coffee table as she did, and I felt myself calming down a little more. As Hermione and I broke away from each other Neville grabbed my arm and examined my carved-up wrist.

"This looks nasty, hold still and let me heal it mate?"

I nodded and held my arm in place while Neville set about closing every last deep slice around the raw flesh of my wrist with a mumbled charm I'd never heard of before.

"That looks like you were chained to something Ron," Seamus said with a frown of concern, "do you get captured in the future?"

I looked up at him and shrugged.

"Sort of, ambushed really, and Harry was so bloody stubborn he had to come along for the ride."

"There," Neville said as he put his wand away and I looked at my perfectly healed wrist.

"Thanks Nev..." I felt dizzy again, "...I..."

I felt Hermione lifting my head but I didn't see her as my vision grew hazy and everything went dark. There was a splash and I found myself on my hands and knees, three inches deep in stagnant water, back in the underground cell. I wobbled as I tried to get to my feet and look for any trace of Harry.

"Agent Weasley?" a familiar voice said as I was hoisted up to my feet and pulled out of the cell and up the stairs, "About bleedin' time you came back."

"Harry?" I said vaguely as I attempted to get my head straight again.

"Potter's fine don't worry," the voice of Auror Cavendish said while shoving a bundle of warm dry clothes into my arms and sitting me down in a rickety wooden chair, "put these on and I'll notify headquarters that you're back."

While I pulled the sweater over my head Cavendish tossed a handful of floo powder into the fire and plunged his head into the green flames. By the time he came back out again I was almost fully clothed again, pulling on a pair of socks and staring at him expectantly.

"What happened after I left? How did you lot find him in time?"

"We didn't," Cavendish snorted with a shrug, "you did. Another version of you showed up a fraction of a second after you disappeared and got Potter out just in time."

I nodded to let him know I understood while the broad shouldered Auror pulled a thermos out of a small pack at his feet, poured me a cup of steaming hot tea and then handed me a pumpkin pasty. I almost kissed him with gratitude before downing the tea in one gulp, burning the back of my throat in the process, and tucking in to the pasty as if I hadn't eaten in days.

"Your wife prepared this whole package for you, she said you usually had cravings when you came back, she's been missing you Agent Weasley."

I swallowed my mouthful and looked at Auror Cavendish with some alarm.

"Why, how long was I gone?"

"A week and a half."

I nearly choked, Cavendish laughed and slapped me on the back with his massive, strong hand.

"She's not been fretting over you, don't you worry about that, she said she was with you on the other end of the trip and that you were only there for a few minutes. You got a bit ill, got a bit panicky and then got your wounds treated before coming back. We all knew you'd be coming back ok, we just didn't know when that's all. We've been sitting in that cell in shifts."

"Wow, a week and a half, thanks Cavendish."

"It wasn't just me, I've only been here since noon."

"What time is it now?" I frowned.

"Ten to midnight," he said as if no time had passed for him at all, "eat up now, I've got to accompany you to the apparition point and see you get back to your flat. They're my orders so no arguments right?"

I nodded and stuffed the last of the pumpkin pasty into my mouth before pulling on the trainers Hermione had supplied the Aurors without taking the time to tie the laces.

"Ready?" Cavendish asked, seeming to be checking that I was physically capable of disapparating safely.

"Yeah, let's go."

I apparated into the vandalised phone box at the corner of my street and stepped out to wait for Cavendish to join me. As we walked down the street I tried to find out more about the set up I hadn't been able to prevent.

"Well when Potter didn't join us we hung back for a couple of minutes, it was kind of suspicious in itself that was, and then Bev...Auror Davis I mean," he stammered.

I smiled, I knew Cavendish had a bit of a thing for her, and nodded for him to continue.

"Well she went back and saw signs of a struggle. She reported back to Eldridge and just as we were going to split into two teams, one to continue with the mission and the other to go in search of Potter, the temple blew."

"Blew up?" I asked, my eyes wide.

Cavendish nodded and slapped me on the back warmly, which didn't actually feel all that different to him slapping me on the back to stop me from choking earlier.

"So thanks to your getting there in time to keep Potter from disapparating with the rest of us you managed to save the whole squad. Eldridge kind of felt like we owed you after that so the whole team have been taking it in turns waiting for you to get back, so you wouldn't be stuck down there alone y'know?"

As we climbed the stairs to the front door of our building I began to feel around in my pockets while smiling gratefully at Cavendish.

"Thank 'em all for me won't you? I'll come by and see you all when I get the chance myself but just tell them I said...where's my bloody keys?"

"I've been holding them for you, they were left behind with your clothing when you went," Cavendish chuckled as he tossed my front door keys into my hand, "and I'll tell them, don't worry."

We climbed the stairs, I stumbled over my loose shoelace a couple of times, before reaching my front door and Cavendish knocked as I lifted my key to let myself in.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

He grinned proudly.

"I just want to see the look on her face, eight night shifts I've done in that hole in the ground and I think I've earned it."

Just as I was about to laugh at his need for feel-good kudos the door was flung open by a clearly exasperated Hermione who was huffing and rolling her eyes.

"Honestly Ginny, I'm fine..." her face froze and her eyes grew wide when she saw me, I thought she was going to scream or something.

"Is this yours Mrs Weasley?" Cavendish asked in his most professional Auror like tone.

Hermione inhaled sharply and threw herself at me with a squeal, hitting me with quite some force, and I steadied myself before nodding to Cavendish and carrying my wife inside while she wrapped her legs around me almost as tightly as she was doing with her arms.

"Thanks Lee, have a good night mate," I smiled as I kicked the door closed.

"Will do Ron," Cavendish smirked before catching Hermione's watery eyes, "go easy on him love, he's had a hard day."

* * *

_A/N Credit is due to the late great Dennis Potter for the bum-tit-tit drum music, delivered by Ewan McGregor in 'Lipstick On Your Collar'._


	15. Get Me To The Church on Time

**Get Me To The Church On Time**

_14th February 1999 and 12th September 2006 (Ron is 18 and five months old, Hermione is 19)_

"How do I look?"

HERMIONE: I've never seen Ron struggle to hold in a laugh so hard in all my life, it actually looks painful for him, and I glare at him ferociously and turn back to the mirror to finish straightening out my hair.

"No babe, don't be like that I didn't say anything," Ron struggled to say without crumpling into hysterics completely.

"You didn't need to say anything Ron, I know what I look like," I snapped and tried to slap some of the poofy bridesmaid dress down flat at my sides," your sister will pay for this one day I swear."

Ron was about to make one of his sarcastic comments when the doorbell rang and he wisely chose to run and open it rather than wind me up even more.

"Car's here," he called to me and I took a deep breath to compose myself before going out in public wearing a blue meringue and stepped out of the bedroom and tried not to notice the look of horror on the driver's face as he saw me approaching him, Ron turned to the man and smirked, "I think you're gonna need a bigger car!"

RON: I'm glad we don't have to go to the church together, she's not happy with me at all this morning. That bridal party is going to look like an explosion in a candy floss factory and Hermione seemed to resent my comparing her to a pigmy puff when I first saw her getting ready at eight A.M.

I've got to go round to Harry's to make sure he gets to the church before Ginny does otherwise she'll murder me and I can't return the suit if there's blood all over it.

"Oi groom, open the bloody door!" I yell through the letterbox at Harry's place.

"I hate your brothers, I hate your family, I hate our friends..." Harry was saying raggedly just before he opened the door and let me see the state he was in from last night.

His eyes were just open enough to let me see that the whites of his eyes didn't exist any more, taken over by red blood vessels, and he had two small grey hammocks handing from beneath each eye. His skin was pale to the point to transparency and he was just a mite unsteady on his feet.

"Morning Harry!" I bellowed into his face causing him to cower away from me like a vampire hiding from the sunlight.

"I hate you so much," he mumbled as he moved aside to let me in and rubbed his head.

I couldn't stop laughing as I made my way down the hallway and into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee for my hung over friend.

"How can you expect sympathy from me, of all people, I knew I abstained from that stag night for a good reason."

"Oh Ron your brothers are so evil," Harry moaned as he crawled into a chair at the kitchen table and set his head down gingerly on one of the place mats, "I wish you would have come."

I frowned at this and stared down at him.

"I'm sorry, run that one by me again please."

He rolled his head sideways to look up at me.

"Remember when you said you shouldn't come because nobody would dare get hammered in front of you because of your," Harry raised his arms into the air and made air quotations, "problem?"

I nodded and pulled up a chair beside him, pouring the coffee and setting it right beside his head.

"Well that would've been a good idea. Charlie wouldn't have been able to order that stuff that gets you wasted just by smelling the fumes."

"Green Dragon," I found myself informing him with a little too much familiarity for either of us.

Harry lifted his head off the table and looked me in the eye.

"Yeah, I take it there isn't a drink you haven't tried then?"

I smiled and shrugged before tapping the coffee cup beside Harry's head and told him to drink up. Harry forced himself to sit up and lifted the cup to his lips and sipped a little of the hot black liquid. He shuddered; I know what he means I can't stand coffee myself, before looking at me sadly.

"I really wish my best man could've been there, I'm such a prat for not having a sober stag night."

I laughed and smacked him around the head, causing him to wince.

"Don't be daft, there's no such thing as a sober stag night, and besides I'm here now looking after the wrecked groom aren't I? That's what best men are for."

"Best mates," Harry mumbled as he shook me by the shoulder and closed his eyes to drink the rest of his cup of coffee in one go.

"Now don't go all mushy, that's for later when I've got a camera and can truly embarrass you at work by showing the pictures of you crying like a baby to the hardened Auror faithful."

"You wouldn't dare," Harry growled at me.

"Oh wouldn't I?" I looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

He rested his head back down on the table and sighed.

"I'm sorry I gave you a drinking problem," he murmured into the place mat.

I burst out laughing at this.

"I don't have a drinking problem mate. I think the one of us who has a problem with drinking is the one who can't lift his own head up."

Harry snored and I sat back in my chair and folded my arms with a huff. Ginny was going to kill him, then Charlie, well there was going to be a whole killing spree in general as far as I was concerned but at least I would be way down that list of names. I would just be the one who didn't get him sobered up in time. I chuckled to myself as I looked down at my comatose friend.

"When you see the state of Hermione you're going to lose your lunch mate!"

HERMIONE: I've been hiding in a corner while Ginny screams at her mother, Fleur and Luna for almost an hour now.

Fleur had run from the room in tears, Ginny huffing something about hormones and how she should never have chosen a pregnant bridesmaid, and I made an excuse to follow her out.

"...just to make sure she's alright Ginny, you don't want her following you down the aisle with mascara all over her face do you?"

"Unless we all did it," Luna said helpfully, "then it would look as if it was on purpose."

I found Fleur throwing up in the bathroom and sat rubbing her back for a few minutes before hearing a baby crying in one of the bedrooms.

"Oh no, Fleur I think Ron's just arrived, I just have to..."

"Go," Fleur waved me away, "I may be 'ere zum time."

"Is that little Ronnie I hear?" Mrs Weasley was shouting from the living room.

"It's ok Mrs Weasley, I've got him," I called back, still not comfortable with calling her Molly yet despite her insisting I do so ever since Ron and I got engaged.

"Don't let the little sod puke on your dress Hermione!" Ginny screeched up the stairs at me, causing the infant Ron to scream again.

I picked him up and cradled him in my arms, rocking and shushing him while murmuring into his beetroot coloured face.

"If you want to make a mess of this nasty dress you go ahead baby Ron, I'll thank you for it in eighteen years time."

His little face was still scrunched up and he was bawling his eyes out. I assume that had been why he had travelled in the first place, he'd got himself so worked up that he'd just popped out of his cradle or high chair and reappeared on the landing outside his parents' room. I kissed his little head and smiled, I never could quite believe that this time travelling baby was the same person as my own fully-grown time traveller. I'd seen baby pictures of Ron and said 'ahh' and embarrassed him by commenting on how much cuter he was back then but when you actually find your sexual partner in your arms only a few months old it isn't quite so adorable. In fact it makes me feel like a bit of a pervert.

"Can I 'old 'im?"

It was Fleur; having recovered from her prolonged morning sickness and followed the sound of screaming into Mr and Mrs Weasley's bedroom.

"Of course you can, you need the practice more than I do," I smiled as I handed him over.

Fleur cradled the baby and began to sing to him, a sweet French song, and soon he was calming down and dropping off to sleep. I smiled at the two of them as she sat down on Mr and Mrs Weasley's bed and pulled a blanket off of it to wrap around his little pink body.

"You're really good at that, a natural," I smiled.

Fleur smiled back at me and rocked the baby gently.

"It is ze ozzer veela trick I can pull, much more use zen winning ze gentlemen over in my opinion."

I sat down beside her and punched my enormous dress down so I could see the baby over it.

"Well this is one gentleman that you've won over for life I think, no wonder he took such a shine to you at Hogwarts, he must have been craving the veela mojo all that time."

She giggled.

"I 'ave never 'erd eet called mojo before, I like eet."

We were enjoying out little moment of tranquillity with the baby so much that we didn't even notice him disappearing again until Fleur was about to rock him again and found herself cradling an empty blanket.

"Bye bye Ronald," she sighed as she stood up to put the blanket back onto the bed.

"Hermione! Fleur! What the hell is going on up there?" Ginny hollered, making both of us cringe at the sound of her voice.

"Just on our way down Ginny," I called down the stairs to her.

I looked back at Fleur who was shaking her head, a little dimple of a worry line forming between her eyebrows.

"I pity poor 'arry."

RON: I've been using all my best hangover cures on Harry and he's still a little too rough around the edges for me to allow to meet and greet people outside the church just yet.

"Ron please just kill me, just get it over with, tell Ginny I was taken down defending her honour to a dozen Death Eaters. Just don't tell her I got so drunk I couldn't even make it to the church."

I knew there was one thing I hadn't tried yet, the one thing that used to guarantee I could get through another long day at work after I had drunk myself into a stupor the previous night, and I knew it would sort Harry out in a jiffy but I was just having a little trouble bringing myself to do it.

"Oh man those raw eggs are coming back on me," Harry said, sounding as if he was talking underwater while his back arched and he tensed up momentarily before exhaling deeply and holding his head in his hands.

That was it. I made my decision.

"Right, I'm going to get you something from across the road, you stay here and whatever you do you must never tell Ginny and especially not Hermione what I'm about to do understand?"

Harry looked at me and nodded.

"Anything, just don't let me ruin this for Ginny."

I took a deep breath and got out of the car.

Three minutes later I was back.

I pulled the small bottle out of my jacket pocket and unscrewed the cap, glancing out through the windows guiltily as I did, and handed it to Harry.

"Here drink some of this."

Harry looked at the bottle and then back at me in horror.

"Where did you get that?" he shuddered.

"There's a shop we passed a little way back there," I nodded and tried to push the bottle into Harry's limp hand but he wouldn't take it from me.

"You bought it?"

"No I nicked it," I huffed, "Of course I bought it now take a swig and get it together will you."

Harry sat up straight and stared at me, he was a different kind of pale now and for a whole new kind of reason, and he still didn't take the small glass bottle from my hand.

"Vodka?" he said, his voice almost too low to even be a whisper.

"Don't think of it as vodka," I said uncomfortably, "think of it as hair of the dog and take a damn swig."

Harry was still staring at me in disbelief and he looked as if I had just told him I was dying from some incurable disease.

"You bought a bottle of vodka?" he said, I was beginning to wonder when exactly he was planning on blinking again as he hadn't done so for some considerable time.

"Yes Harry I bought a bottle of vodka, I am holding a bottle of vodka, an _open_ bottle of vodka, and I've got it for you to carry you through until the reception."

"Wh-wha-but..." Harry began to stammer.

"By the reception they would have opened the champagne, you will be able to get another top-up and then gradually wean yourself off it over the course of the night, so when you wake up tomorrow morning you only need take one shot and you'll be fixed all through the day and Ginny'll never even notice."

Harry looked as if he was going to hit me.

"What are you saying Ron?"

"I'm saying that Hermione's a hell of a lot smarter than Ginny and I've got her fooled. Just a shot a day first thing in the morning, you never actually get drunk but it dulls the pain, just take a swig Harry."

I held the bottle out to him and that was when I saw it hit him like a cold bucket of water. He was on the brink of something, either pummelling me into a bloody pulp or dragging me bodily into St Mungo's for detox, and that was when I knew I had only got one option left. I just had to do one last thing to save the day.

I pulled the bottle up to my lips and drank.

"No!" Harry yelled and ripped the bottle from my fingers.

I laughed and wiped my chin where the clear liquid had spilled and got out of the car.

"That's better, don't you feel much better now Harry?"

Harry clambered out of the car and ran after me as I strode off toward the church, still clutching the bottle in his hand, grabbing me by the elbow and pulling me to a halt to look into my eyes with a devastated expression on his face.

"How long?" Harry said in a desperate whisper, "How long has this been going on?"

"What?" I shrugged with some amusement.

"This!" Harry said as he held up the bottle before my face, "How long have you been back on the bottle Ron?"

I wondered just how smug I looked right then, maybe I'd get the chance to travel back one day and watch this whole beautiful moment from the sidelines.

"I'm not a snob Harry, I don't have to have bottled water, I can drink it from the tap."

Harry was about to ask me what on earth I was talking about when he paused, blinked, and looked at the bottle in his hand before turning back at me.

"Water?"

I grinned and Harry took a swig and swallowed before looking at me with a blank expression.

"It's water," he said without comprehension.

I slapped Harry on the back and set off toward the church with a wink.

"But, so you're not...?" Harry was stammering as he watched me heading off ahead of him while he seemed frozen to the spot.

"And that is what I like to call 'being scared sober'," I said as I turned with a bow.

Harry suddenly shook with rage and relief as he ran to catch me up.

"You_ bastard!"_

I was almost doubled-up with laughter as he caught up with me.

"Don't you ever, ever, ever do something like that again. You scared the shit out of me!" Harry yelled while I chuckled.

"You're welcome by the way."

We made our way into the church with Harry clutching his chest and grumbling something about his heart not being able to take friendship with me much longer.

HERMIONE: The reception was in full swing when my levity at seeing my two friends so happy came crashing down around me. I knew something was wrong when I was dancing with Ron and looked into his eyes only to see him catch a glimpse of something over my shoulder and suddenly look more tired than I had seen him in a long time.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," he groaned and buried his face into my hair with a deep sigh.

I turned around to see Seamus walking in with Lavender on his arm, she was looking stunning as ever and not at all like a pile of cushions, and I glanced around to look for Neville. I saw him dancing with Luna and jerked my head to get him to waltz in our direction, which he did with a confused expression on his face.

"What's _she _doing here?" I hissed when he was close enough to hear me.

Neville followed my eyes over to Lavender and Seamus and looked as shocked as I felt. I noticed that Ron and Luna were listening to our conversation with puzzled looks on their faces and each looked to their respective dance partners for an explanation to their reactions.

"What's going on Hermione?" Ron asked me with a serious tone, I hate Ron using a serious tone, it doesn't feel right.

"Well Lavender...you see Neville had asked if Lavender could come as she was feeling lonely and I said that maybe she shouldn't because of..." my eyes darted to Luna and back at Ron, "...the situation and he agreed and said he wouldn't ask her to come but now here she is with Seamus."

Ron didn't seem to know whether to be angry with me or worried about Lavender's presence at his sister's wedding all of a sudden and I dragged him off the dance floor and into an alcove out of sight of anybody else.

"Look I've got to find Ginny and warn her about this, if she just happens to bump into her I don't know how she'll react, you stay here and..."

"Are you serious, you want me to hide from her?" Ron scoffed.

I knew it was a ridiculous thing to expect of him but I just wanted to keep the tension down to the barest minimum and from what Neville had told me it didn't sound as if Lavender was capable of keeping her emotions in check in general let alone in the vicinity of Ron. I put my hand on his cheek and stood up on tiptoes to kiss him.

"Sorry, I'm just doing that thing I do from time-to-time, trying to protect everybody from everything you know me."

"Listen, you go and talk to Ginny, you're right about that she really should be given time to get livid and then cool down rather than stumbling upon her and punching her lights out," Ron said with a smile, "but I'll just wander around and talk to whoever I talk to and if I happen to cross paths with her then that's fine. We work together every day Hermione, we're used to pretending to be normal."

I smiled and shook my head before kissing him again and rushing out into the crowd to find Ginny.

RON: I hadn't actually wanted to circulate amongst the crowd as I had told Hermione I would. I don't know why I said it really. Instead I made my way outside to get some fresh air, I was feeling a little hot inside the massive ballroom, and sat down on the stone steps that led down to the fountain in the middle of the green.

"Do you need me to fetch Hermione for you?" came the familiar voice of concern from over my shoulder.

"No I'm fine Lavender really, I'm just a bit danced-out that's all," I said without turning around to look at her.

I saw movement beside me and she sat down on the stone steps, keeping a little distance between the two of us as she did, and we sat in silence for a minute.

"I think Seamus only asked me to come because he was feeling sorry for me," she said.

I turned to face her and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Nah, he's got a soft spot for you, Neville too."

She giggled and looked down at her feet.

"I mean everybody I knew from school was coming except me, he was about to leave and I turned up at the flat and he seemed to feel obliged to bring me along."

This was a difficult one to judge for me. Do I do what is expected of me in this conversation and reassure her that she's wonderful and beautiful and not to put herself down like that but risk her reading it the wrong way or do I say nothing and have her believe that nobody in the huge room behind the both of us could stand her company?

"He really does like you y'know? You should give him a chance, he's a good bloke Seamus."

She looked at me and tried to smile but her face seemed too weighed down with other thoughts to commit to it.

"So I hear congratulations are in order," she said after an uncomfortable silence, "you and Hermione are next up the aisle I hear, I'm really happy for you."

"Thanks," I smiled before feeling a little too uncomfortable to keep this up and getting to my feet, "speaking of the missus I'd better go find...whoa," I said as I wobbled on my feet and Lavender jumped up to grab my arm and steady me.

"Are you about to go?" she asked and I felt my head spin and my legs give out from under me.

I was about to respond to her when the ground was pulled away from me and replaced by a darkened ceiling and a room lit with candlelight. I sat up and shook my head to clear my vision just as a voice called out from behind a desk behind me.

"Evening Mr Weasley, if you feel the need to purge yourself there is a bucket under my desk I would appreciate you use instead of my carpet this time."

I jumped to my feet and covered my privates in horror.

"Professor McGonagall?"

She was wearing her nightgown and seemed to be in the middle of writing a letter of some kind as she peered over the top of her spectacles and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh don't be so alarmed boy, I've seen it often enough before."

"What d'you mean you've seen it?" I almost screamed like a girl as I spoke and hid behind a small screen in the corner.

"I mean I've seen you appear in my office out of the blue, what else did you think I meant?"

I tried not to seem to relieved and took her familiarity with my sudden appearances to mean that I had a box or a drawer somewhere in the room for me.

"Sorry, I was just at a wedding and it happened so quickly, so do I have...?"

"To your right there is a small chest, you'll find spare clothing and anything you may need in case you're hurt in any way."

"Oh no, I'm fine thanks," I said as I opened the chest and began to get dressed behind the screen.

"I can summon Dobby if you would like something to eat and drink?" she asked as she put down her quill.

I poked my head up above the screen and nodded at her thankfully.

"Oh yes please,"

HERMIONE: Neville and Seamus seemed to be having quite a heated debate about the Lavender situation when I approached them, suspicious about Lavender's absence and turning to search the massive room for Ron but not being able to find him either.

"...and just because you didn't have the stones to ask her doesn't mean she shouldn't have come altogether!" Seamus was snarling.

"I was going to ask her but I had the common courtesy to run it past Hermione first and she didn't seem to think it was a good idea," Neville said defensively.

I was about to clear my throat and make my presence known when Seamus threw back his retort.

"Well of course _Hermione_ didn't think it was a good idea, she'd shut Lavender out of all our lives if it meant she didn't have any competition for her precious Ron's attention!"

Neville glared at his flatmate and nodded to where I stood over Seamus' shoulder, He turned and blanched at the sight of me and swallowed.

"Hello you two," I beamed as breezily as I could, "I was just wondering if either of you had seen Ron anywhere?"

"He's gone," a voice said at my side, making me jump slightly and spin on my heel to see Lavender carrying a bundle of Ron's clothing, "just a moment ago outside, I thought I'd bring you these for when he gets back."

I took the bundle from Lavender and smiled with some effort.

"Thank you, that was very kind of you."

She returned my smile before turning to Seamus and holding out her hand to him.

"Would you dance with me?"

Seamus grinned back at her and took her hand, leading her out onto the dance floor.

"I'd be honoured."

Neville and I watched as they disappeared into the crowd and I bit my lip and turned to look at his sad face.

"You don't just like her as a friend do you?" I sighed.

Neville shook his head.

"And Seamus was that other person who was involved that you were talking about wasn't he?"

He nodded.

"I'd hug you but I don't want to crumple Ron's suit," I smiled.

Neville chuckled and shrugged.

"I've lost a woman to many things before but never an empty suit."

We both laughed and made our way over to the buffet.

RON: I sat at McGonagall's desk and ate my battered cod so fast I practically inhaled it, much to my former head of house's distaste, before downing my fourth glass of gillywater.

"So whose wedding were you attending then Weasley?"

"My sister's, her and Harry."

"Ah so you have travelled forward to me then?"

"I have?" I raised an eyebrow as in began to pick at the salad that had come with the fish.

"Indeed, the new school year is about to begin, it is September 2006, quite a jump for you eh?"

"I've had bigger," I shrugged.

"Yes I know," she said as she looked away from me and flicked through a small notebook full of dates and scribbles before looking back at me, "would you call yourself a particularly strong swimmer Weasley?"

I blinked, where had that question come from?

"Um yeah I guess so, I mean I'm not weak that's for sure."

She nodded and closed the small book with a smile.

"Well be sure to keep it up, don't let yourself get out of practice or out of shape, you never know when you may need to...swim."

I picked up my glass to take another drink but it was empty so I put it down again.

"Would you like some more?" McGonagall said as she sat up and pointed her wand at my glass.

"No it's alright, I'm fine really, it's just a habit in my family. If it's there, eat it or drink it before anybody else does."

She looked quite amused at that. There's something about getting the tiniest of smiles from the stoic professor McGonagall that made me feel ten times better than getting a gale of hysterical laughter from the woman who worked in the canteen at the ministry who laughed at everything I said and told me I was the funniest person in the building and I felt quite pleased with myself.

"Well this is obviously your first visit to me but in future you will always find your supplies in that chest, until of course you come to me for my first visit when I will be quite unprepared and somewhat flustered by your presence."

I couldn't help myself but laugh and look forward to seeing the look on her face when that day came.

HERMIONE: The bride and groom had long gone and the party was dying down now. I sat alone on the steps where Ron had disappeared and waited for him to return.

I was as if that was all I ever did these days, wait for Ron. I would occasionally cause an argument about how much I hated him leaving me and I never meant him to think that I was blaming him for his time travel but that was always the way it ended up sounding to him. It wasn't that I wanted him to promise to never travel, just to never leave me permanently. I always wanted him to come back to me. I hated waiting but I loved that feeling when he came back.

I could only bear him leaving me if I knew he would be coming back to me again.

There was a sudden weight on my lap and Ron's head appeared there, along with the rest of him sprawled out on the steps, and he blinked his eyes back into focus and looked up at me with a smile.

"Did I miss all the fun?" he whispered.

"I know I did," I said as I leaned over to kiss him.


	16. Suspicious Circumstances

**Suspicious Circumstances**

_4th June 2002 (Ron is 22, Hermione is 22)_

HERMIONE: Ron comes home from work with an intense look on his face. He doesn't even see me smiling at him from the kitchen and tosses his jacket onto the back of one of the chairs and throws himself down into his armchair in front of the fireplace. He has a crinkle in his eyebrows and is biting at the hard skin around his fingers in that way he does when he's trying to work something out.

"Ron?" I call over to him, causing him to blink once and look round the room for me.

He really is troubled by something. He didn't even jump when I spoke.

"Oh hi, sorry I didn't think you were back yet," he mumbled while maintaining his frown and sitting back in the armchair and laying his head right back to stare at the ceiling, which only seems to intensify his look of concentration.

"Did you bring the job home with you today or should I be worried about something?" I asked as I moved across the room to stand behind him and rest my hands upon his shoulders.

My word he _was_ tense. I began to try and work away some of the stress he seemed to be under. I'd been reading books on massage and aromatherapy recently to try and help Ron wind down and stay in the present more often. I think it's been working but I can't do anything for him when he's at work and that's where he's been getting hit with a magical seizure nearly every day for the past two weeks now.

"Sorry," he said before hunching his shoulders under my grip and then loosening them as he closed his eyes, "you're getting good at this y'know?"

I leaned over him and planted a soft kiss on his lips and watched as his eyes opened again and he let a weighty sigh leave his body.

"You know what it's like when you know you've seen something out of place but you don't know...what you've seen or where you've seen it?" he was trying to explain his problem to me without breaking his code of secrecy as far as work was concerned.

I frowned down at him and his face contorted with the frustration of not being able to articulate exactly what he needed to say.

"I don't even know if I've seen it," he rubbed his face roughly, "I'm imagining things."

"Do that a lot in your line of work do you?" I smiled with an arched eyebrow.

He looked up at me again and smiled back before shaking his head.

"I think there's something going on. There too many mistakes being made that can't be traced back to their origins and I'm getting these weird...never mind," he shook his head and put a bigger smile on his face.

Ah the fake smile, how I hate the fake smile. He got up from the armchair and shook out his arms as if he'd just been carrying a heavy load for quite some time and leaned forward to kiss me properly. As he pulled back he glanced over to the kitchen.

"So shall I make a start on dinner or are you doing something already?" he asked as I stepped in a little closer to him and directed his focus back down to me again.

"You're getting a weird what?" I said with a non-confrontational smile, "do I need to worry and pester you to go and see Healer Wanless again?"

He smiled a real smile this time, that's the smile I like, and curled his arms around my waist.

"It's not the epilepsy, don't worry, it's like..." he thought hard about how to explain without compromising security, I really dislike his job when it gets to him like this, "You know how you've read everything?"

I shoved him in the chest and put my hands on my hips.

"I have not read everything!"

"Well most things worth reading then," he shrugged with a chuckle and I moved back into his embrace and nodded, "That's a lot of information. You would have taken in lots and lots of stuff from thousands and thousands of books right?"

"Right," I nodded, knowing that this couldn't be about books.

"Let's say you see something, like in the street or the countryside, you see...a weird looking plant and you just think to yourself 'huh, that shouldn't be there' and go on your way."

I'm pretty sure this isn't about plants either but I nod my head and keep trying to follow his laboured explanation as best I can.

"So then you get home and you make dinner we chat for three hours or so about who is and isn't invited to the bloody wedding!"

I cast a theatrical glare up at him but is on a roll and doesn't notice me.

"And then we go to bed and at five o'clock in the morning you wake up, sit bolt upright in bed and say to yourself, wait a minute that plant's illegal or that plant doesn't grow in this country or...something. Your knowledge catches you up and screams at you to pay attention because you knew when you saw it that something was up with it."

"Ok Ron yes, delayed recognition of something," I nodded as I lifted my hand up to his face to try and calm his mounting exasperation, "so you're having your five o'clock in the morning moment now are you?"

He shook his head, and my hand away, before stepping back and out of my arms and running both his hands through his hair.

"No, that's the problem, I've been waiting for it to hit me all week but it still won't come. I've seen something, there's something at work that isn't right, and I can't put my finger on it. It's been driving me mad all day."

I pushed him back down into his armchair and sat on his lap.

"Maybe you should stop trying so hard and then it'll come to you. It's called a five o'clock in the morning moment because it comes to you as soon as you stop looking for it."

I lean forward and kiss him on the lips and he smiles, resigning himself to another day of frustration over this problem.

"Now please don't stress yourself out Ron," I say as I get up off his lap and move toward the kitchen again, "I've cooked for once and I'd hate for you to miss it."

My heart lifted as I heard him laughing while I leaned over the stew I had been paying such close attention to and swore under my breath as I saw it had caught at the bottom of the pot.

Luck never did favour me in the kitchen.

* * *

_5th June 2002 (Ron is 22)_

RON: I can't concentrate on anything. Not even making myself look busy whenever Carol, my secretary, comes in to hand me more paperwork to topple the swaying mountain that already fills my in-tray. I'm not even bothered when Parker comes in and looks down his nose at my in-activity.

"Agent Weasley, I just thought I'd hand in my cousin's application for the Auror academy next year before I go off on my death defying mission with the squad.It's good to see you're keeping on top of things and watching our backs _as ever_."

He knows what my job is now, the whole squad do ever since I did one of my disappearing acts right in front of Eldridge, and this seems to have just made Parker even more cautious around me than usual. I take the application and slap it on the top of the pile before putting both feet up on my desk and sitting back in my chair defiantly. Parker huffs and walks out.

I lean all the way back and try to clear my head. Hermione's right, I'll never have my five o'clock moment if I try to force it. So instead I swivel my chair from side to side and try and balance my pencil between my top lip and my nose. I hear Langley's voice grumbling from down the corridor outside and let out a groan.

"Don't tell me that prick Parker's reported me again," as I speak the words the pencil falls and I catch it and spin my chair to face away from the door.

I lean right back again and see a pencil sized hole in the ceiling just above my desk and wonder if it would be possible for me to throw my pencil up and right through it like a dart. I take aim and fire. I miss. The pencil bounces back off the ceiling and I catch it, lead pointing into my palm and causing me to swear just as Langley makes his presence known to me.

"Well at least you've solved one mystery," he said gruffly as I spun my chair around to face him, "now I know how I got that bloody hole in my ceiling. Do remind my secretary to give you a raise Weasley, this has to be your most productive week yet."

I was about to roll my eyes and begin to defend my attention displacement activities to Langley when an alarm bell went off in my head.

It was five o'clock in the morning.

I looked back up at my ceiling. It had been the ceiling. I had come back from a trip last week and regained my focus right on that hole in the ceiling and thought 'huh' to myself and then nothing more of it. Later that same day I had seen another hole like that in the ceiling above Eldridges desk and never thought to make the connection. It's been brewing all this time. A tiny hole in the ceiling is bit of an oddity but two in similar spots over somebody in the department's desk was something to pay attention to. Now I found out that Langley had one too. This was it; this was what had been driving me insane over the past week.

"Weasley, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?" Langley huffed as he attempted to squeeze himself through my door, in order to waggle his fat finger into my face I presumed, and I jumped out of my chair and ran toward him.

He backed back out of the doorway and I bundled him aside to run out of my reception area and out into the corridor. I looked up and down at all the various doors of people in high positions within the department. I ran the length of the hall to check out what Langley had told me and there it was, right above is desk, a tiny hole the width of a pencil. I ran back out of Langley's office and across the corridor to Eldridge's and took another look at the tiny hole that had set the clock in my head ticking to put this thing together.

"That's three," I whispered to myself before running out and into the briefing room.

Langley was waddling down the corridor from my office, calling out to me and demanding to know what on earth was going on. I flung the door to the Auror briefing room wide open, causing the entire Auror squad and Eldridge himself to turn and point their wands at me, but I just ran through the group and scanned the ceiling to see if the room with the highest level of security had been breeched as well. Harry was reaching out to me to get my attention and find out what I was so panicked about when I saw it.

A small hole right in the centre of the room, in prime position to read everything that might be put on the board the Aurors were assembled around. Maps, plans and top-secret information would be on clear display to anybody who cared to find out about them. I couldn't believe that somebody had been able to get away with this right underneath everybody's noses. There was no way this could have been an outsider. This had to have been somebody within the department spying on everybody else for whatever reason or other.

"Shit!" I hissed as I ran out of the briefing room, bundling Langley aside again and ignoring Eldridges' bellowing rage at a 'filing clerk' just barging into a highly confidential Auror briefing.

As I opened every door along the corridor, ignoring the protestations of secretaries and officials inside their offices, to see that every single room in the department had been compromised I could hear Eldridge demanding an explanation for my behaviour from Langley.

"Would you mind telling me what your agent thinks he's doing barging into a final briefing with my squad, glaring at my ceiling, swearing and then running out to repeat the performance throughout the rest of the department Frank?"

"Well he's just..." Langley didn't want to admit that he hadn't a clue what was going on and Eldridge didn't appreciate the hesitation any more than he did the breach in security.

"Oh I'll just carry on with my _secret_ mission now shall I Langley? What with it being common knowledge now we wouldn't want to let the Death Eaters down by not showing up to be massacred would we?" Eldridge roared.

I ran back and grabbed Langley by the elbow, dragging him away from the fuming Eldridge.

"They already knew anyway," I panted to Eldridge as I pushed Langley further away to look him in the eye and ask him, "What's upstairs sir?"

Langley looked up at the ceiling, his eight chins straightening out into one bulbous neck before folding back again as he looked back at me.

"Nothing," his jowls shook along with his head, "just the roof."

I was almost shaking with excitement now.

"And how do I get up there?" I asked him.

"Agent Weasley I don't understand what you're talking about, there's nothing up there, the ministry keeps all loft space clear."

"How do I get up there sir?" I said firmly and with a squeeze of Langley's arms to emphasise the urgency of this situation.

"Agent Weasley?" Eldridge was over my shoulder, looking suspiciously up at the ceiling himself now, "Are you saying you suspect a department wide breach?"

I released Langley and turned to face Eldridge.

"There is a tiny hole in everybody's office right above their desk so everything we read or write can be read over our shoulders. There's one in you're briefing room sir," I pointed to the room crowded with Aurors, whispering and listening carefully, "in a perfect position to read everything you've got written on that board there and they can hear you too. They can listen to us all and they're probably listening to me realise this right now. I've got to get into the loft sir!"

Eldridge blinked once and spoke to me clearly and quickly with no emotion in his voice at all.

"End of the corridor, turn right, painting of black wolf, jump right through it and there's a ladder. How many Aurors do you need, they're yours?"

Harry, Cavendish, Davis and Parker all stepped up immediately but I held up my hand as I started running down to the end of the corridor, stopping them all but Harry in their tracks.

"I've got this, just watch the exit for me to catch 'em if they come down," I said before reaching the right turning and pointing a finger at Harry as he followed me, "this is _my_ job Harry. You stay down here with them and do as your told."

Harry didn't stop running after me.

"If you do not follow orders I will put you on probation Potter!" I yelled.

Harry stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me as if he would like nothing more than to plunge me, head first, into a bucket of bile. He was going to make me pay for that but at least it stopped him.

I had jumped through the painting and clattered into the ladder that was leaning against the bare brick wall and up to a small wooden hatch in the ceiling. I hurried up and flung the hatch open, lighting my wand and pointing it around the darkened loft to see if an attack was coming or not.

I seemed to be alone but knew by far too much experience that appearing to be alone usually meant you weren't. I did a quick sweep all the way around me. Langley was right, there was absolutely nothing up here and nowhere to hide. I climbed up onto the floor of the loft and began to walk with caution back in the direction I had come from downstairs.

Then I could see it. Pinpricks of light cutting through the darkness from the loft floor, one for every hole in every ceiling, and I could see the dust swirling in the thin shards of bright light. They were like bars of sunlight forming a cage in the middle of the nothingness. I couldn't see if there was anything on the other side of it so I tried to give myself the same advantage anybody skulking in the shadows may have over me and my lit wand tip.

"_Nox!"_ I whispered.

All I really seemed to achieve as far as visibility was concerned was to make the spears of daylight appear even brighter than before. I thought I could hear somebody breathing on the far side of the loft and edged as quietly as I could over to the side of the loft so I could squeeze past the beams of light without being seen. I had to duck as the roof came in and a sharp angle and it wasn't easy to keep my balance but I was getting somewhere when I heard a magically distorted voice call out.

_"Depulso!"_ and I felt myself being thrust through the slate of the roof and out into the open air where I started to fall.

I grabbed at the splintered wooden eaves to my left and right and managed to pull myself back inside in time to duck the secondary attack while the hooded figure ran past me to get to the ladder and make his escape.

"_Occuldo!"_ I yelled, closing the hatch and locking the hooded figure in the loft with me, "You don't want to go that way, they're all waiting for you."

I stepped out of the light that was now pouring in through the hole in the roof and back into the shadows. I watched as the hooded figure moved back through the tiny beams of light, causing them to flicker as he passed them with a snigger. I forced my eyes closed before the flickering got to me.

"No," I whispered, "I know what you're trying to do and I'm not going."

I opened one of my eyes a crack and saw that he was no longer amongst the lights. I took several steps away from the spot I had spoken and tried to find him in the darkness. He knew all about me. He knew about the time epilepsy and how to trigger it. He knew what I could do and that I could find him at any time but he didn't seem to care. This was incredibly unnerving.

I heard heavy footsteps to my left and spun around to cast a defensive spell but I was tackled about the waist and the two of us slammed hard onto the floor of the dusty loft. Neither of us could see a thing around us, including each other, and we rolled several times as we both fought for the higher ground in this fight.

"I know you're working from the inside you little maggot," I hissed as I landed a punch just below the ribs and raised my wand to put a body bind on him but he was too fast for me.

"_Reluctor!" _I was forced one way and my wand the other as the hooded figure threw himself down and jammed his own wand against my throat so hard that I almost gagged, "You and your department are going down Weasley. You've got to pay for what you've done."

I kicked him between the legs and wriggled out from under him.

"Ah so you are a bloke after all," I said as I swung a kick into the crumpled figure's gut, "that's _good _to know!"

"_Adficto!"_ the wheezing wizard managed to say as I turned to search for my wand.

The spell hit me in the right shoulder and I felt the joint pop. My whole right arm was agony and I couldn't hold it in any position that lessened the pain in my shoulder. I tried to clench my wand hand but it sent tortuous spasms right through me and I realised that I couldn't pick up my wand even if I was lucky enough to find it now.

Hooded figure laughed and got back to his feet, he still looked fairly uncomfortable himself but he was definitely in the better position attack-wise.

"I hate you Weasley," the figure hissed as he advanced upon me slowly, "it's time that the blood you've had all over your hands this past three years be your own..._Sectus-_"

"_Protego!_" a furious voice bellowed from the open hatch to the loft.

The spell hit the hooded figure before he could complete the cutting spell and he staggered back into the angled roof before throwing a counter attack back at the familiar figure wearing Auror robes and looking more livid than I had seen him in a long time.

"_Absisto!_ You should have done as you were told Potter," the distorted voice of the ministry mole shouted, "this is between him and me."

Harry had ducked and rolled away from the spell before firing a body bind that missed me by inches and was nowhere near it's intended target. He wasn't too good in the dark even with his glasses on. Something kicked me the back, sending agonising shockwaves through my right arm, before I heard the distorted voice again.

"Watch your back Weasley._ Accio portkey!"_

Something flew across the room in a blur of light and colour and the hooded figure caught it on his left hand before disappearing completely.

I'd lost him. I gritted my teeth and lay down on my front, kicking out at nothing as the pain of this simple movement sent a whole new kind of torture through my shoulder. I felt as well as heard Harry running across the loft floor to get to me. His steps were so heavy and the vibrations caused by them so strong it felt as if a thousand hot screws were being drilled into the bones of my arm at once.

"Here let me put that back for you," Harry said as he grabbed my injured arm and lifted it.

What was he trying to do kill me? I cried out in agony and pounded my head against the floor just to give me something else to think about but it didn't do any good.

"No get Ben, Harry get Be-"

Harry yanked my arm firmly and there was another pop. I admit it alright? I screamed my head off when he did that. Despite the horrific pain of the shoulder being popped back into it's socket I did feel exceptionally better and managed to sit myself up while Harry squatted before me and looked me hard in the eye.

"Awaiting probation sir."


	17. Just Passing Through

**Just Passing Through**

_March 28th 1999 Ron is 19, 23, 28, 37, 38, 39 and 41. Hermione is 19 and very confused!_

HERMIONE: George had called me at work, he said that a Ron from 2009 had just appeared at their place and fallen down their stairs into the shop. That was new as far as his many sudden appearances went, he'd never appeared halfway up a flight of steps before, I hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come as he got older.

I stepped out of the fireplace to see the version of Ron who was married to me getting patched up by the twins and mumbling something with an amused look on his face.

"Are you alright?" I asked him as I rushed across the room to him and gave him a kiss before wondering if that was entirely appropriate seeing as he wasn't my current Ron.

"I'm fine don't worry," he said with a weary sigh and still looking slightly amused at something, "I just know what's coming that's all."

"Well of course you do you pilock," Fred said as he put his wand away and got back to his feet from healing Ron's broken arm on his knees, "you're from the future."

Ron scowled at his brother and flexed his newly healed arm.

"Shut up and let Lee in will you?" he grumbled.

The twins looked at each other and frowned.

"Lee as in Jordan?" they asked in unison.

Ron nodded and pulled a copy of 'Legal Loopholes For The Magical Grifter and How To Exploit Them' out from beneath a dusty pile of old adventure novels of George's beside him.

"But Lee's out of the country, he's not due back for seven weeks yet," Fred said as the door flew open and an out of breath Lee Jordan burst into the room and tripped over the loose carpet, falling into George's chest face first.

"Bloody hell!" George exclaimed while Fred stared back at Ron with his jaw hanging open.

Lee pulled himself back up to his feet and brushed himself down with an apologetic grin.

"Sorry about that but I'm kind of in a bit of trouble at the moment and was wondering if you still had that book about..." Ron thrusting the book he had dug out over his head and in front of Lee's face stopped Lee mid-speech. He blinked and took it, "Wow, thanks Ron."

Fred was completely speechless now and George wasn't far behind while Lee did a comical double take and stared down at Ron where he sat in the armchair and put his feet up on the twins' coffee table nonchalantly.

"Hold on, how did you get back here so fast?" the dread locked lifelong friend of the Weasley twins gasped, "I just saw you running starkers down the road not two minutes ago!"

"And so it begins," Ron said with an enigmatic sigh.

Before any of us could ask Ron what on earth was going on the fireplace erupted into green flames and a naked Ron fell out and crashed onto the floor on his knees heavily. The Ron in the armchair drew a sharp intake of breath between his teeth and looked away.

"I remember that, one of you lot might want to repair his kneecaps when you've got a minute."

I grabbed the new Ron and rolled him over to heal what appeared to be two shattered patella and George threw a coat over him to conceal his modesty while he shook off what had to have been a very painful injury indeed and looked around the flat before locking eyes with his twenty eight year old self.

"When is this?"

"This is the day Lee shows up to borrow a book from your brothers."

The new Ron stared up at the four of us as we all tried to understand what exactly was going on and he looked utterly fed up and dropped his head into his hand with a groan.

"Oh it's not _that_ day is it?"

The Ron in the armchair shrugged and picked up a newspaper.

"The first of many for both of us I'm afraid."

The door behind Lee Jordan opened again and Harry walked in with a shivering Ron wrapped in a blanket and a smile on his face.

"Look who I found in..." he paused when he saw we already had more than our fair share of Ron's for one room already and this new, much older looking Ron looked from the one version of himself to the others and rolled his eyes.

"Oh no!" he sighed with a weary groan.

The Ron reading the paper in the armchair let out a highly amused laugh and the older of the three Ron's stomped over to him and kicked his feet away from the coffee table.

"Yeah you can laugh you git, you've only had to do it twice," he grumbled before sitting down on the sofa and resting his head back and closing his eyes.

"What's with all the Rons?" Harry asked me.

"I don't know," I said, wondering why I was the one expected to answer for this strange anomaly

I saw another Ron tapping Harry on the shoulder from the top of the stairs and clearing his throat. Harry almost jumped right out of his skin and into another life altogether.

"How many more?" Fred suddenly yelled as he found his voice along with his outrage at this Ron convention in his living room.

"Well there'll be seven of us in all," the newest Ron explained, "including your one when he arrives, but I kind of need a little help right now. They beat the shit out of me when they finally caught me."

I shoved my way through the crowd of Lee, Fred, George, Harry and the Ron whose knees I had just repaired to get a better look at the new arrival. He didn't look injured at all.

"Who beat you and where, I can't see a mark on you?" I frowned as I reached up and touched his face tenderly.

The newest Ron reached out and pulled another, battered almost beyond recognition, Ron through the door.

"It's not this me it's that one."

While Harry and I supported the semiconscious Ron over to a chair his escort wandered over to the group sitting around the fireplace and perched himself on the arm rest of the sofa, nodding a greeting to the newspaper reading Ron as he did.

"This again eh?" he said, almost sounding bored.

The more cynical of the Ron's huffed wearily.

"I understand that this is a momentous event and everything but has anyone worked out why is was necessary for so many of us to have to be here for it?"

As I healed the beaten Ron's fat lip and Harry worked on his pummelled torso tenderly he looked over to the group with his two black eyes and managed to mumble.

"The gravity of the situation pulls us toward it."

Just as I was going to ask the bleeding Ron when he had started to become so profound he passed out and it was all I could do to hold him up while Harry, now accompanied by the more helpful of the Ron's, finished healing the rest of his injuries.

The Ron reading the newspaper held up his hand to get everybody's attention and said with a smile.

"I'm older than he is and I'm ok so don't worry about it babe," as soon as he finished speaking the grinning Ron pointed over his shoulder to the bathroom door.

We all turned to look at it and gasped as we heard the sound of a toilet flushing and another older Ron stepped out wearing Fred's bathrobe and smiling at me.

"I'm older than he is and I'm ok so don't worry about it babe," he shrugged.

"Ha!" the Ron with the newspaper said as he revelled in his predictive skills.

"Right," Fred bellowed at the top of his lungs with both his arms raised, "Shut up Rons!"

George seemed to be on board with this and began to shove all the different Rons into the one area.

"All of you just sit down and keep your traps shut."

Harry cleared his throat and nodded down to the unconscious Ron in my arms.

"Well he can stay there," George shrugged.

"Lucky bastard," one of the gathered Rons muttered, "doesn't have to sit through all this crap again."

"I said shut it!" Fred barked as he shook a warning finger and cast his furious glare around every pair of blue eyes that looked back at him, "Right now _one_ of you please tell me what's going on here?"

All the Rons began to open their mouths to speak when an older Ron got to his feet and held his hands palms out to silence them all.

"I'm the oldest, I'm the one who has to do it, so I'll explain it to them alright?"

The other Rons nodded.

The oldest Ron cleared his throat and took a step forward, out of the group, and put his hand on Fred's shoulder.

"Something really complicated is about to happen but you have to remember that if he was in any real danger then none of us would have been able to be here in the first place ok?"

I didn't like the sound of this and tried to set the unconscious Ron down so I could get to my feet but he was too heavy and my legs had gone numb with pins and needles after supporting him for all this time.

"What do you mean by 'him' being in danger? Who is 'he'?" I said while Harry tensed up and curled his fingers around his wand, seen only by me out of the corner of my eye.

The oldest Ron was about to answer my question when something else did, the arrival of the present day Ron. I could hear him thundering up the stairs and yelling to the twins before he arrived into the room of chaos.

"Fred, George, you are not going to believe what I've..." Ron stepped into the living room and froze at the sight of me holding an unconscious version of him while Fred was face to face with another and four others just like him watched from the fireplace expectantly.

He just froze and stared at the scene with wide eyes and not a single sound escaping his lips. The oldest Ron walked away from Fred and over to the stunned Ron and looked him in the eye for a moment before slapping him hard around the face.

"Hey!" George protested with some confusion.

The present day Ron, my Ron, blinked and shook his head before looking around the room again and letting out a very short nervous laugh.

"Right I have to do something and you know why that is don't you?" the oldest Ron said forcefully.

The youngest Ron glanced over at Lee Jordan who was still clutching the book he had come for what felt like hours ago, though it was only minutes, and nodded.

"The Aurors want to arrest him but it's a trumped-up charge and if I let him walk so he can find his loop hole and get himself out of it I'm going to go to Azkaban for corruption," Ron said as if he was reading it off of a card rather than speaking fluidly.

The older Ron smiled and nodded while Fred and George turned and glared at Lee Jordan.

"This whole mess is your fault?" Fred exclaimed, aghast.

Lee seemed defensive and shook his head.

"I didn't multiply him!" he said as he gestured to all the various Rons.

"Shit Harry's here," my Ron suddenly said while he visibly deflated at the sight of his best friend in the middle of this mess.

"Exactly," the oldest Ron said with a grimace, "we've got you and a member of the Auror team in here with him. It's going to have to be something bloody spectacular to keep you both out of trouble when it comes toLee getting away."

My Ron swallowed and looked over his elder's shoulder to meet Harry's eyes for a moment.

"When they ask you what happened tell them it was six Death Eaters who'd taken pollyjuice to look like me ok?"

Harry nodded, although he didn't seem to know what was about to happen.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ my Ron said with a quick flick of his wand and Harry's wand left his tight grip and flew through the air to be caught by the cocky version of Ron who had been reading the newspaper.

"_Stupefy!"_ he yelled as he hit Harry with the stunning spell and Fred and George yelled out in shock before I looked at my Ron in horror.

Our eyes met and he tried to give me a smile of reassurance before looking back at himself and closing his eyes.

"Make it look good."

The older Ron looked as if he was going to be sick as he raised his wand to Ron's chest.

"I've been through this six times already and it never looks good, _Crucio!"_

I heard myself screaming at the same moment Ron began to, I watched him dropping the floor and curling up into a ball as the curse hit him, and the twins and Lee were all raising their wands to try to intervene before the younger Ron who still brandished Harry's wand, without any of his previous amusement regarding the situation, threw the _immobulus_ spell at them. I was still weighted down beneath the unconscious Ron and tears were streaming down my face as I watched the oldest Ron lift the curse, drop the wand and crumple to the floor leaving nothing but Fred's bathrobe behind.

The other wand-wielding Ron lifted the immobulus spell on the twins and Lee and heaved a great sigh of relief that it was all over.

"Get out of here and save your arse Lee, and you two," he said to the terrified looking twins who were on their knees at my Ron's side trying to rouse him, "remember the story, six Death Eaters on pollyjuice."

Harry's wand fell through his vanishing fingers and hit the ground just before the pile of clothing the Ron had been wearing did. A weary version of Ron, older too, looked over to me and smiled sadly.

"He'll be fine, it's harder on the one who has to do it to himself," he looked away from my burning eyes, "it's my turn next time."

With that he dissolved out of his blanket followed quickly by two others and now all that was left of the visiting Rons was the unconscious one draped over my lap. He opened his eyes and tried to whisper something to me but I couldn't make it out and leaned forward to put my ear to his lips.

"Tell him the mole is..." I felt his weight leaving my lap at the same time as his voice had been sucked away from reaching my ear.

I tried to go to Ron but my heavy legs wouldn't let me stand so I dropped down and crawled over to him, the tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Well he didn't take that for nothing you daft sod," Fred snarled up at a shocked Lee Jordan, "_GO!"_

Lee ran out of the flat and down the stairs like a man possessed and Harry groaned from somewhere behind me. George scrambled over to him to make sure he was alright. Fred looked me in the eyes, seeming to be a little shaky himself, and tried to keep himself calm.

"The theory that Ron's office job is just a cover story isn't really a theory anymore is it?" he asked me.

I shook my head and realised exactly why Ron's employers had been so enthusiastic about employing a time epileptic. Even though I knew that Ron would survive to become that older version of himself who had to put his nineteen-year-old body through such torture it was still cold comfort. I would still worry about what he had to go through to become the kind of Ron who could perform that curse in the first place.

"I'll go and floo his healer," I mumbled while ministry police and several Aurors bounded up the stairs to respond to reports of screams at Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes.

I don't think I am going to be able to take this.

* * *

_A/N I didn't think I was confusing you all enough so I wrote you THIS chapter! I hope I didn't give any of you a headache._

_You gotta love a room full of Rons!_


	18. Separation

**Separation**

_14th February 2009 (Ron is 28 and 26, Hermione is 29)_

RON: It's Harry and Ginny's tenth wedding anniversary. I've been dreading this day.

What could I have done? What should I have done? Would warning them have helped or would it have just made things get worse a hell of a lot quicker? I have so many questions that I don't have answers to already but this whole Harry and Ginny thing is a real toughie.

Hermione and me are going over to their place for a big party, family and friends will all be there, and not even she knows. I can't think what good it would do to tell anyone. I really wish I didn't know.

HERMIONE: Ron has been acting so strangely these last few weeks and this morning he woke up as if he was going to face a firing squad. I've tried to get him to talk to me about it but he won't. Days when he's like this worry me so much. It's days like this that something bad always seems to happen, usually to him, and I realise that he knew all along that nastiness was on the horizon and was just waiting around for it.

I hope he doesn't get hurt. I hope he doesn't go missing. I hope he comes back to me within minutes rather than hours or days or weeks. The very few time's he has left me for weeks have been the hardest of my life.

I hope this day isn't ruined for everyone.

RON:I can't be the only one to have noticed things going sour but I was the only one looking for it so early on. I've tried to get her to loosen-up and let a few things go and I've tried to get him to stop burying himself in work just to avoid going home but nothing can hold Ginny's tongue and nothing can make Harry put up with it any longer.

She's a fiery one my little sister. We all are, it's the Weasley temperament, and it's in our genes just as much as it is for me to suffer from time epilepsy. The thing is the male temper differs slightly from the female. My brothers and I will stomp, sulk, snap, huff, puff, punch and seethe. Nine times out of ten those traits will lead us into foolish territory that we will later regret and spend several days, weeks and years apologising for, especially if it's to a _female_ Weasley.

The women in our family get riled-up in a whole different way. I'm not talking about my mother's rages to us, that maternal and that's a whole other species in itself, I'm talking about when they are faced with somebody the really don't like or who has ticked them off to such a degree that they unleash the fire-breathing dragon that is the Weasley rage. With the females in the family you can expect spite, derision, mental cruelty, callousness, heartlessness, vengeance and the psychological equivalent of a kick in the knackers with a steel toe capped boot.

When Hermione and I fight, and we still do of course, we can still upset each other but the pain is there because the love still is. I can only hurt her because she loves me and vice versa. Harry and Ginny fight to hurt each other. They fight because Ginny's temper takes that cruel edge and Harry has lost the patience to be able to shrug it off.

As we walk up to their flat I grip Hermione's hand and take a deep breath. She knows something's up and she knows I've been dreading this party for days now. She never once asked me to unload my lone burden on her despite the fact that I know she would take it all from me if I let her. She stops walking and pulls me to a halt by doing so.

"What's wrong babe?" I don't even try to smile.

"We don't have to go inside if you don't want to," she says anxiously as she pulls me back towards her and encircles my torso with her arms, "I can tell them that you went travelling and I have to stay at home because your baby self showed up. We can turn around and go home Ron."

I smile at long last; she is the single sweetest person I have ever had the good fortune to meet.

"It'll still happen whether we're there or not."

She looked up at me sadly.

"But you don't have to be there when it does do you?"

I swallow and look up at their window, I can see the silhouettes of the guests that have already arrived, I know people will be drinking up there because I've made such a big deal about how ok I am with people drinking in front of me. My family and friends and my wife will all stand in stunned silence while this whole thing erupts and I will dragged right into the middle of it.

"No I don't."

"Well come on then," she begins to pull me away from the flat but I shake my head, "Why do this to yourself Ron? Why can't you just look out for yourself just this once?"

I put my hand into my pockets and kicked at a pebble lazily.

"I'm going to be there, I show up, that's how I know what's going to happen at that party tonight Hermione. I've got to be there to look out for myself because I already was there don't you see?"

She looked so sorry for me I almost laughed and she took my hand and led me back to Harry and Ginny's front door.

HERMIONE: I can tell something's up as soon as we walk into the living room. For a start Fred and George look way too pleased to see us.

"Hermione, Ronniekins, thank Godric you're here!" George said, his eye pleading with me to save him from this hell-hole.

"Something up George?" Ron asked rubbing his hand up and down the small of my back.

Fred looked very serious and nodded over his shoulder to the 'happy' couple that were scowling at each other in between talking to Molly and Arthur and a frightened looking Neville.

"They've been at it as soon as we arrived and I don't just mean in the usual way they go at it I mean really bad this time."

"Charlie made a comment about ten years with Ginny being worse than a death sentence, as a joke y'know?" George explained, I looked offended on Ginny's part while Ron simply nodded, "Well Harry laughed a little too heartily at that and it all kicked off from there."

Ron pulled me a little closer to him as he looked at the twins grimly.

"It hasn't even started yet."

"Ron!" Ginny said, playing the delighted hostess with almost ferocious enthusiasm, "Hermione! I was afraid you weren't going to make it, Harry seemed to think that you were just running late but I'd assumed that maybe Ron didn't feel welcome at this party."

Ginny had directed the last part of that sentence over her shoulder at Harry who glared at her while Neville spilled his glass of mead down himself. Dean and Pavati were shifting uncomfortably in the corner while Bill seemed to want to hide behind Percy and Charlie who were both looking very awkward indeed.

"Why wouldn't Ron feel welcome at...?" I began before Ron cleared his throat and shook his head.

Ginny took a step toward him and hugged him with a mortified look on her face. Ron looked as if he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.

"I saw how upset you got when Harry first mentioned this party, I told him over and over again that he was being thoughtless but he wouldn't listen," again Ginny turned to direct her next comment at her husband, "Thinks he's knows you better than me you see? My own brother's a stranger to me apparently."

"I didn't say that!" Harry growled back at her while Arthur tried to divert his attention away from Ginny's little digs and towards a muggle television repair shop he had spotted through the window.

Ginny looked back at Ron and smiled sadly.

"But I knew you'd still come. I knew you'd come for me despite the...thoughtlessness."

"Right that's it," Harry barked as he pulled away from Arthur and stomped across the living room towards Ginny.

At the same moment Harry lifted his finger to point accusingly into Ginny's face while he gave her a good talking to and Ginny rounded on his and drew herself up to her full height in readiness for his verbal attack something smashed and Fleur screamed in shock.

"There I am," Ron mumbled before breaking away from me and pushing his way past Charlie and Percy to find Bill crouching over a naked and coughing version of himself.

"Ron? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Bill was saying while Molly threw a blanket to him to wrap Ron with.

"He's got the flu," Ron said as he crouched down and smiled at himself.

"Hey mate," the other Ron said before coughing again, "you look like the Cannons just decided to call it a day."

My Ron smiled his first real smile in days and I tried to get to the two of them to help but Harry and Ginny were battling each other to get to him first.

"See now there's two of them," Ginny snapped at Harry while shrugging off his hand on her arm at the same time, "you're taunting two of them now!"

The fluish Ron looked to his other self with confusion and my Ron shook his head as he had done with me.

"Don't," he sighed, "just don't ask."

"You know what Gin," Harry said with narrowed eyes and his body rigid with the rage he was trying to release in slow regulated spurts rather than one big explosion, "for somebody who claims to be so concerned about the welfare of her brother you're quite neglectful of him when he's sick and in the middle of a seizure on your living room carpet aren't you?"

"Harry..." the sick Ron began, obviously thinking that his best friend was being a little harsh with his little sister.

"Don't," my Ron said once again, "Let's just get you to the bedroom yeah?"

Bill slid the ill Ron's arm over his shoulder while the present Ron did the same on the other side and they lifted him.

"You hold that blanket up for us Ron," Bill smiled, "you want to save yourself a little scrap of dignity for once don't you?"

Both Ron's smiled at their older brother as they made their way forward but found themselves blocked by a Harry and Ginny face-off.

"Don't think I don't know what all this show is about Harry Potter," Ginny raged, "you keep trying so hard to convince everybody, even yourself, that there isn't a problem and there's nothing to worry about when it all boils down to this...you wanted alcohol at this party to alleviate _your_ guilt for being the one to give him a drinking problem in the first place!"

My Ron look to the floor with a weary sigh while his other self looked shocked and appalled at this statement. The rest of the room fell into a shell-shocked hush and Harry turned to look at his present best friend who was raising his head again, knowing exactly what was to come next.

"Look at him Ginny, look at how happy and normal your concern has made him at this party. You want to know why he's been dreading it? Because of you that's why! Not the booze, not temptation as you put it, but you and your need to own and run and destroy everybody else's life!"

"Harry what the hell are you," the fluish Ron began before his cough silenced him again and Bill decided to take charge of the situation.

"Right you two can have a public barney if you want to but get the hell out of our way and let us get him to bed, he's not bloody well!"

Harry and Ginny were pulled away from each other so the two Rons and Bill could pass between them before they stepped back into their toe-to-toe war.

"How dare you," Ginny seethed, "how dare you tell me I ruin people's lives."

"I didn't say ruin," Harry said with a cold laugh, "I said destroy. You can ruin something without destroying it but that's not good enough for you is it Gin? No, total destruction of all who know and love you that's your aim!"

"I didn't tell him he could find the cure for his epilepsy at the bottom of a bottle!" Ginny hollered back into Harry's face.

"Will you both shut up?" the room was silenced by the boom of a voice none of us had ever heard shouting like that before.

In fact I don't think I'd heard Percy shout once in all the time I've known him.

"Percy!" Molly let out a tiny whisper of disbelief at seeing her prim and proper boy go all, well, Weasley on her.

"What is wrong with the two of you?" he said, his face boiling with fury and turning almost purple, "If you really want to fight and you really want to fight in front of people then that's fine but don't you dare go dragging any of us into it and _especially_ not Ron. Did it never occur to either of you that the reason he didn't want to be here wasn't Harry letting people drink or Ginny being impossible to be in the same room with? It was probably because he's been through this nightmare of a party with you both once already, as a time traveller, and was dreading having to live through another night like that!"

I saw Ginny's eyes glisten and Harry turn away to look at the wall and felt myself swell with pride for Percy. I wanted to thank him and applaud him and...and...find Ron and take him home.

I went into the bedroom where Ron was quietly talking to his sickly other self, watched by Bill who leaned against the wall with his arms folded, and I sat down beside him on the edge of the bed.

"Let's get out of here Ron."

I curled my fingers around his wrist and gave a tug as I got to my feet.

"Oh no," he said bitterly, "Ginny's got to ask me a question first."

I frowned just as Ginny's voice sounded from the open doorway.

"Ron can I ask you a question?" she said with a sniff as she hugged her arms to herself.

I looked back at Ron who was staring at his sister and begging her not to do what he knew she would do anyway.

"Do Harry and I have an eleventh wedding anniversary?"

Ron swallowed and looked down at his hand, still suspended before him in my grip, and didn't say a word.

"Do we get divorced?" she asked with a quiver in her voice this time.

Ron rubbed his free hand over his face roughly before looking down at his other self.

"Tell yourself this was just a bad dream," he whispered to him, "it makes it easier to live with."

Ginny burst into tears and ran out of the flat, followed by Molly and Fleur. I gripped Ron's wrist with even more determination to get him home and just lay with him in the dark until morning. He looked me in the eye and shook his head with a heartbreaking smile.

"I'll meet you at home babe, you go on ahead."

"Surely you don't want to stay here do you, not a second time?" I frowned as I gave his arm another gentle tug.

"I don't stay here Hermione, I do this."

His wrist slipped away from my hand and his face faded out of my sight until all that was left of him were his crumpled clothes and an indentation where he had been sitting. I looked at the other Ron who stifled a cough and rested his hand on mine.

"Go home, he's the only one in this place who actually knows what he's talking about."

I smiled and leaned over to kiss him but he put up a warning hand and shook his head.

"You really don't want what I've got."

"I want everything you've got," I smiled as I pressed my lips to his and turned away, wiping my eyes.

Bill smiled at me and nodded out the door.

"Fleur and me are going back to turn the babysitter back into a real person and not a snowman, Cam thinks it's funny to melt them when they try to send him to bed, wanna walk to the apparition pint with us?"

I nodded and followed him out, closing the bedroom door behind me and seeing that Ron was already asleep.

Harry had already gone.

* * *

_16th June 2017 (Ron is 37 and 39)_

RON: I am writing frantically while the thoughts are still in my head. I know him too well for his own good. I can beat him at his own game the slimy little git. He's not a mole he's just reject with somebody to blame for all his troubles.

Unfortunately that somebody is me.

At least I know who I'm looking for these days, it doesn't make it any easier but it's always a great help when you know that the person you had been trusting to watch your back when you needed them was really the person ready to stick the knife in it.

I was about to predict his next move, this human chess game had been going on for far too long now, when a hand slammed upon my desk and I saw another version of myself pulling himself up from my office floor.

"Blimey, how long have you been down there?" I asked as I leaned forward to see if he was hurt at all.

"Just got here," he muttered, "when is it?"

"2017," I said as I opened a filing cabinet and pulled out a spare set of clothing for him.

"What day in 2017?"

"June the sixteenth, why?"

He smiled and shook his head.

"I won't bother putting those on then, I'm only here long enough to tell you to put your affairs in order."

I sat back in my chair and tried not to seem too alarmed.

"You make it sound like I'm gonna die."

"Un-clench mate, you're alright, but Hermione's about to have a rough time of it."

I sat forward again and felt my stomach shrink down to the size of a cherry stone.

"What's wrong with her, don't you dare tell me there's nothing we can do," I warned him.

He smiled.

"Calm down, she's just going to be a bit lonely for a while. You're going to travel this evening and while you're only gone for a weekend, and quite a nice one actually, she'll be without you for three months."

"Three months?" I exclaimed.

This was unimaginable. I'd never been gone so long before.

"And the thing that makes it tougher is no version of you travels back to this time to keep her company at any point. She's without you for the whole three months."

I put my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands as I struggled to take this in. I was going to leave my wife on her own for three months. How the hell was I going to break this to her?

The door to my office clicked open and my newest secretary, an older woman called Frances who was very efficient and utterly nonplussed by my nudity, came in with some notes I had requested typing up.

"Agent Weasley I've done them with and without the spelling mistakes, I didn't know if it was some kind of secret code, and I'd like to remind you that some words are spelled phonetically you know. You have rather over-complicated things in this paragraph here," she leaned over my nude other self who smiled up at her, "would you excuse me alternate sir? Just here you see?"

She pointed out my abysmal spelling and I nodded impatiently.

"Thank you Frankie but could you give us a minute please?"

Frances sniffed and nodded curtly.

"Would either of you like some tea brought in?"

I was about to say no when my other self beamed and nodded.

"If you could bring my friend here a very sweet one that'd be great, he's going to need it."

"Of course Agent Weasley the second," she said as if this was a regular experience she had with employers all the time.

"Excuse me," he said, a little offended, "I'm the first, I'm older I'll have you know Frankie!"

"You are not older than me sir."

My other self chuckles before turning to me as she closed the door behind her.

"She sticks around that one, you treat her right."

I waved my hands as if this whole Frankie distraction was a fly buzzing in front of my face.

"Yeah fine, can we get back to this please? I'm going for three months straight?"

"Yep so you've got to go to Langley and tell him you'll be missing work for a bit, set up some nice stuff for while you're away, and then you've got to break it to Hermione which is not fun."

"Set up nice stuff, what does that mean?"

"It means book some flowers to be delivered a couple of weeks into the break, get dinner sent to the flat after work so she doesn't have to cook yet another meal for one. You know what she really got a kick out of? Letters. You can give a bundle of letters to the post office in Diagon Alley and write dates of delivery on them so she'll get a letter from you every other day or so. She keeps 'em all mind you so make 'em good."

"Flowers, food, letters..." I recited back to myself as Frances came back into the office with my cup of extra sweet tea.

"There you go sir, and will there be anything else?" she smiled.

"Yeah Frankie," my other self said with another broad grin, "take the next three months off on full pay. Sail around the world or something."

Frances raised an eyebrow into an elegant curve.

"And what am I to do with the other ninety days sir?"

My other self looked back at me with a chuckle and a shake of the head.

"She's funny."

Frances left the office again and I took a gulp of my super sweet tea.

"So what else then?"

"Use your imagination!" he huffed.

"I don't need to I've got your memory!" I snapped back.

He grinned a smug grin and sat back in the chair.

"Not anymore you don't."

He faded away and I was left with three months to fill in one evening.

First thing's first, I had to get writing.


	19. Promises and Lies

**Promises and Lies**

_26th May 1999 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: I was sleeping when a sudden weight landed on me, causing me to wake up with a yelp, and I saw Ron lying on top of me with a wide grin on his face.

"Have you been away?" I asked him as I rubbed my eyes.

He was still grinning stupidly and nodded. What was he so pleased about I asked myself. I was about to ask him when he lowered his head and kissed me, he was even smiling as he did that, and I decided to go along with this post time travelling euphoria he seemed to be going through. He had never been like this before. I wondered what wonderful thing from his future he had seen. I slid my hand down the side of his body and settled it into the small of his back while he covered me in so many kisses I felt as if there were butterflies delicately flapping their wings all over every inch of my body.

Finally he looked down into my eyes again and stroked my hair away from my face, with his grin mellowing into a smile of contentment now, and wished every trip he took could end this way.

"Don't tell me," I said as I pulled him down to lay right on top of me again, "you've seen a future where the Chudley Cannons win the league?"

He was still looking down at me happily, usually he would be nuzzling me or curling himself around me to go to sleep, but he just kept looking at me.

"Better," he whispered.

Wow, this must be good.

"We live happily ever after in a self perpetuating house of chocolate?" I guessed.

He blinked as he thought about this for a moment.

"Not that but I'll definitely look into us getting one of those," I giggled and he lowered his head and whispered into my ear, sending my toes all a tingle, "and it's even better than that."

"What is it?" I demanded as I ran my hands up his bare back and felt the need to hear exactly what was making him so happy while silencing him until morning with my lips.

He rolled off me, I moaned a little in disappointment at that, and propped himself up on the pillow with his elbow while taking my chin in between his thumb and forefinger and looking at me contentedly.

"Y'know you never stop being beautiful?" he whispered before tilting my face towards him and leaning in to share another brief kiss.

I felt myself blush at this.

"Was that what you were so happy about?"

He shook his head and I turned onto my side so we were face to face and put my hand on his cheek.

"What's so fantastic then, tell me?"

He turned his face into my hand and kissed it before looking back at me and I wondered if I had ever loved him more than I did right at that very moment.

"It's just that I can finally make you that promise."

I stared at him, what promise was this? He beamed again and took my hand in his.

"What do you mean?" I asked him, something in the pit of my stomach making me get very excited indeed.

"I," he began, kissing me on the tip of my nose, "Ronald Bilius Weasley," he kissed my forehead, "can now give you my word," he kissed my left cheek and I felt as if I was about to scream at him to forget the damn promise and screw his brains out, "that I will never," he kissed the other cheek, "ever," he kissed me on the lips and looked deep into my eyes, "leave you."

I stared at him as his face lit up once again, that huge grin of his spreading across his wonderful face and my heart seemed to be beating as fast as a humming bird.

"What?" I said, not daring to hope that he had just said what I thought he had said.

"I will never leave you. I know it for a fact. I've seen it."

I felt a lump in my throat the size of a fist and my eyes began to well with tears as I gripped his arm so tightly I think I might have actually drawn blood with my fingernails.

"Really?" I say with a shaky laugh.

"Really."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

I hug him so tightly to myself that I don't think I'll ever be able to let him go.

"Say it again," I demanded as the first tear fell from my flooded eyes.

He whispered into my hair while curling his own arms around me.

"I promise."

"Say it all, the whole thing, let me hear you say it again," I said as if terrified he was only teasing me and shaking him with fear and excitement.

"I promise you I will never leave you Hermione. I never ever leave you, I know it, I saw it, I promise it. I'll stay with you forever."

I choked on my excess of emotion and rolled him over so he was now beneath me and I kissed him and held him and made love with him until I had nothing left to share with him except my own enormous grin as I rested my head upon his chest and listened to his lullaby while he drifted off to sleep. I curled myself around him and kissed the freckled skin before my lips and wondered how I was ever going to cope with life from now on knowing it was going to be such bliss.

* * *

_29th May 1999 and 5th July 1999 (Ron is 19)_

RON: I had been going through every detail of every mission that Auror Parker had ever been on in his entire career to date and I hadn't been able to find anything suspicious at all.

I had let him get hexed. Whether or not I knew he would be ok was neither here nor there I wouldn't have let that happen unless I was trying to draw my attention to him from the future. I didn't know him very well, not like I knew Harry and not in the way I knew of the kind of people Aurors like Davis and Cavendish were, and he always seemed utterly professional. When he had come crashing into Fred and George's flat and seen me laid out from the cruciatus curse he had done a thorough sweep of the place and been the only one to have shown some degree of suspicion about our Death Eater cover story, demanding all witnesses be made to take a truth serum back at HQ but I had the authority to cancel that as soon as I got my own head together again.

It didn't seem that he was crooked; in fact it seemed more likely that he suspected somebody else of being untrustworthy and on his own little quest to take them down. I wondered if that was the real reason for his being attacked that night.

I was so deeply involved in his paper work that I had spread all over my desk that when Lavender brushed her hand against my arm I flinched so badly that she almost screamed with fright.

"Oh sorry," I said as the two of us recovered from our little shocks, "I didn't hear you come in I was just in my own little world for a minute there."

She laughed and took a step back forward again, her hand over her heart to indicate that I'd scared the wits out of her.

"That's ok I was just wondering if I could get you anything, you've been going without a break for five hours now and lunch has been and gone."

I looked at my watch and cursed.

"I'm so sorry, have you taken your break?"

She shook her head with a carefree shrug.

"No but it's fine, I'll go when you go the same as always."

That was the way it usually worked. I would take my lunch, Lavender would finish up whatever she was doing and go on hers and then when I got back she would already be sat behind her desk hard at it again. She never took a break while I was still working in case I needed her for anything.

"No you go now, I won't be taking one this afternoon I don't think, just leave the door open and if anybody comes to see me I can just shout through to 'em."

Lavender frowned and put her hand on my arm again, I tried not to make a big deal about it, people rub people's arms when they're concerned about them don't they? She was going out with Seamus now and she had been nothing but professional for months. I had nothing to worry about.

"I wouldn't be happy leaving anybody to work through the day without stopping for a bite to eat or something to drink but especially not you Ron, you need your food, you never skip lunch."

I smiled and shrugged; her hand was still there.

"I had a big breakfast and I'll have a big dinner when I get home, don't worry about it, you go and take as long as you want you've earned it waiting this long for me."

Lavender turned and looked at my cluttered desk and began to gather the papers to tidy them away and I sprang up from my seat to stop her, it might look disorganised but I had everything laid out in search of a pattern and I didn't want her to mess it up.

"No don't it's in order," my hand brushed against hers as I tried to keep the paperwork in place and Lavender turned and looked right into my face, only a breath between us and I really hoped she wasn't going to do what I thought she was going to do.

"I'm sorry," she said in a breathless whisper before running out of my office in tears.

I exhaled with a deep shudder and sank back down into my chair. I really had to get some distance between the two of us without tipping her over the edge again. I wondered if I should speak to Seamus about this, no bad idea, nobody wants to hear that their girlfriend's being inappropriate with her boss and especially when that boss if one of your mates.

I rubbed my face roughly and tried not to let myself get stressed about this. I really didn't want to travel today, not while I was going through all this paperwork, and I wondered if I should floo Hermione at work and tell her what just happened. She always insists I tell her everything that goes on with Lavender and I always feel better when I do but she's been so happy this last couple of days and I didn't want to put a dampener on it.

I got up and went over to the fireplace, deciding to floo while I still had the guts, she would get angry with me if she ever found out that I'd kept something from her and we always said that no matter how bad it was the fact I told her made her feel better about how strong we were as a couple. There would never be anything anybody could use against us to come between us. I threw an handful of floo powder into the fireplace and the flames flickered brilliant green and I was hit by the sudden dizziness as the bowl fell from my hand and I melted out of my clothing and fell naked onto a wooden floor with a groan as the feeling of motion sickness wafted away and my vision cleared to let me see I was in an unfamiliar room.

"Ron!" I heard from another room and running footsteps before Lavender appeared at the open door with a delighted look on her face that soon melted into confusion, "Oh, you're younger."

I wondered why she had been expecting me, an older me apparently, and shook my head as I tried to crawl behind the armchair to cover my modesty.

"What year is it?" I asked her as she reached into a small cupboard and pulled out underwear, jeans and a shirt.

"It's 1999 Ron, where are you coming from? Last year?" she seemed anxious as I took the clothes and wondered why she had a bunch of things in my size just readily prepared in her flat.

"No I'm from '99 too, May. What month is this?"

"July," Lavender said as the blood seemed to drain from her face, "You're from May? Two months ago?"

I nodded and wriggled the jeans up my legs before daring to stand before her and put on the shirt.

"Lavender were you expecting me?"

She looked away from me and shrugged.

"You come by from time to time, usually you're ten or fifteen years older, I like to keep a spare set of something for you to put on when you need it."

"What do you mean _when_ I need it?" I wondered if there were times for Lavender when she didn't feel the need to have me dressed.

"When you come of course, now do you want something to drink or eat, I've got plenty in."

She turned to head back into the place she had come running so merrily from when she heard me arrive, I assumed it must be the kitchen, and I followed her with some caution.

"Lavender I've never been inside your place in my life, how can I travel to it at all?"

"You come by very soon, back in May, you come to...see me."

I couldn't understand what was going on. Why would I go to Lavender's place? Why would I go there after what had just happened back at the office? The thing that worried me most was why she had been so eager to greet my older self. What was he up to?

She turned to me and held out a glass of something I didn't recognise with a smile.

"Here, drink up, I know how dehydrated you can become when you reappear."

I declined the drink with a shake of the head. I really was parched beyond belief but something told me not to drink anything Lavender had to give me.

"Of course," she laughed as she banged the glass back down on the kitchen counter, "_this_ is where you disappeared to while I was away at lunch that day, _that_ was why you were so funny with me about the bloody coffee."

She was laughing bitterly and I was starting to fell very uneasy about being here with her.

"Um, I don't drink coffee Lavender."

"Well you certainly didn't drink mine," she looked back at me with her jaw set in a hurt yet defiant way, "you thought I'd spiked it with something and now here you are thinking the same thing about me again."

"Look I didn't say that I just..."

"Why can't you just leave me be to love you? I could've just loved you from afar and never touched you again and never tried to kiss you or tell you how I feel but you've just got to keep making it obvious how much I bloody _disgust _you! Well that doesn't last forever Ron."

Shit, this was getting scary now.

"This isn't about," I doubled over and clutched my stomach, the nausea was hitting me with a vengeance but I had nothing to regurgitate so all I could do was wince at the pain of the agonising stomach cramp, "Oh Godric!" I gasped as I fell to the floor.

"And there you go, right on queue as ever!" Lavender was saying while waving her arms about dramatically, "You never want me and you never stay long enough to tell me why."

The sight of Lavender standing in her kitchen screeching like a crazy woman blurred into the sight of bright golden flames and I sat up on top of my own previously shed clothing in my office with a grunt of displeasure at the hollow feeling that still made my stomach feel as if there was a knitting needle skewered through my side.

I crawled on my hands and knees, clutching my side as if fearing it would burst, over to the pile of floo powder that had spilled onto the floor when I had disappeared and tossed a small handful into the flames. They flickered green and I crawled forward to put my head in and call St Mungo's for Healer Wanless but a got another spasm of pain and yelped before curling up on the hearth.

"Oh Merlin Ron what's wrong?" Lavender said as she ran into the office and dropped to my side.

"Get away from me!" I said through gritted teeth, causing her to flinch backwards with a start.

"I'm sorry Ron, I just...you look like you're in pain I wasn't going to..." she was almost shaking with anger, "..._touch _you."

The spasm was easing off now and tried to get myself together and sit up. Lavender picked up my shirt and draped it over me before getting to her feet again and walking out of the office and over to her desk, she came back inside and held out a steaming cup of coffee to me.

"Here, you must be damaging yourself travelling back and fourth on an empty stomach."

She brought the cup to my lips and I shook my head with a grimace of pain, I wanted to tell her I didn't like coffee, I needed to tell her it was because I didn't like coffee.

"No Lavender, I..."

"Don't flatter yourself you arrogant pig!" she hissed at me before throwing the coffee down to the floor and storming out, "Think I'm trying to slip you love potion do you? Well if that's how low an opinion you have of me then you can go to hell!"

She was gone now and the stabbing pain hit me again. I writhed on the floor and forced my eyes closed and clenched my teeth to get through the agony before realising that this wasn't just a stomach cramp from travelling without eating all day. Something was seriously wrong. I tried to gather together another decent sized pile of floo powder from the fireside while edging myself closer to the flames and trying to ride the waves of pain as they hit me.

I hadn't got enough floo powder together and I couldn't reach the bowl where it had rolled beneath my desk to get any more. I was about to try and use what I had, without much hope for the outcome when I heard a voice and running footsteps.

"Mr Weasley?" it was Auror Parker, his face framed by the dark curls of his shoulder-length hair and his black eyes set against his deep olive skin made him look almost like a silhouette.

Oh great I've got all his files strewn all over my desk and I'm naked in front of a fire and suffering from Merlin knows what. This day cannot get any bloody worse for me.

"What is it, are you hurt?" he asked as he crouched down beside me.

"Floo St Mungo's," I managed to say, "I need my healer."

"What's your' healer's name?" Parker said as he crawled over to the bowl with the rest of the floo powder inside it and threw a handful into the flames.

"Wanless," I grimaced as the knife in my side seemed to be twisting.

Just as Parker plunged his head into the green flames I passed out.

HERMIONE: I was sitting at Ron's bedside in St Mungo's when Harry and Neville showed up, faces pale, and I gave the two of them a smile of reassurance.

"Don't worry, it was just his appendix, almost at bursting point and Healer Wanless thinks it might have got aggravated or accelerated by the time travel today."

Harry sat down and breathed a sigh of relief.

"So he's going to be ok?"

"He's going to be fine," I smiled before the anger hit me again, "I just want to know where the hell Lavender was while he was writhing in agony on the floor."

Harry drew in a sharp intake of breath and looked to Neville who was looking at me with a very hurt expression.

"What?" I demanded.

"Lavender, she..." Neville seemed to be having trouble spitting it out so I looked at Harry who turned away and stared at Ron so I turned my gaze back to Neville again, "...Seamus went round to see her after work and found her. She'd taken this potion. She'd tried to...to...She'd tried to kill herself."

I stared at Neville in disbelief and opened my mouth to try to say something comforting to him but he was already backing out the door.

"Don't make a hypocrite out of yourself Hermione, I've got too much respect for you to see you do that, I know you don't like Lavender and never will."

"Neville I would never wish this on anybody how could you think...?" I began to protest.

"Don't alright, just don't, I'm going to go up and see how she's doing now. I just wanted to make sure that Ron was going to be ok that's all, Seamus said she was rambling about him when he found her so I think I'll go and put her mind at ease. As much as I can do."

With that Neville turned and walked out and down the corridor. I bit my lip and looked over at Harry.

"Am I really that much of a bitch Harry?" I asked him sadly.

He smiled and shook his head.

"The thing Neville doesn't know is something that makes me want to go down with him and give that drama queen what for," Harry said with uncharacteristic coldness.

"What are you saying Harry?"

"Parker told me he just passed Lavender leaving Ron's office in a rage and when he went inside Ron was in a really bad way."

I suddenly understood why Harry was being quite as merciless as he was towards Lavender's situation.

"She left him like that?" I gasped.

Harry nodded.

"So it appeared to Parker, and he couldn't have just reappeared in that split second after Lavender left because Parker said that Ron had been gathering a pathetic little mound of floo powder to try and call St Mungo's with," Harry's face twisted with bitterness, "Ron was struggling to get help for quite some time and Lavender just walked out and left him there. Now I'm not pleased about what's happened to her but frankly I don't have a hell of a lot of sympathy for her either."

The two of us sat in silence until Ginny arrived, hugging Harry and kissing him on the cheek before giving me a tight embrace and whispering that her bother was going to be the death of all of us one day. We both laughed and the sound caused Ron to wake up from his post-treatment sleeping draught. He smiled up at me drowsily and took my hand.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself," I smiled and kissed the back of his hand, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I just digested part of myself," he mumbled with a wince.

Harry and Ginny laughed and he turned to see them with surprise.

"Oh hi you two, I didn't see you there."

"Oh don't mind me," Harry shrugged as he pulled Ginny to sit on his lap with a wicked grin, "you just keep flirting with you fiancée, but remember mate, no sex until you're fully healed."

"Harry!" both Ginny and I said with outrage while Ron laughed and whimpered with discomfort at the same time.

I squeezed Ron's hand and he turned back to look at me.

"I know you told me you'd never leave me but that still doesn't mean it's ok for you to start rejecting internal organs on a whim you know?" I teased.

Harry and Ginny chuckled at this and Ron broke into one of his wide grins again before frowning and squeezing my hand in return.

"I think I upset Lavender Hermione, we had a bit of a misunderstanding and..." I put my finger to his lips while Harry looked across at me, a tense expression on his face.

Ron was true to his word as ever about this Lavender thing. He had never once lied to me about any of the awful situations he found himself in with her ever since I had made him swear to tell me everything, even if he knew it would hurt or anger me, and I was so grateful for that. I was so incredibly thankful that there were no lies between us, just honesty all the way.

"So have I missed anything then?" Ron asked me, "Any gossip while I've been out that I need to catch up on?"

I smiled and ignored Harry's penetrating stare.

"Nothing at all."

Yes, just like I said, it was all about honesty.

* * *

_30th May 1999 (Ron is 19)_

RON: I was putting away all of my files and paperwork on Auror Parker when Langley appeared on the other side of my open office door, I didn't think he was actually capable of getting his mammoth bulk through it, and he shouted through at me.

"Good Godric it's true!"

"What's that sir?" I said with a smile.

"Somebody told me you'd come in today and I thought they were seeing one of your other selves but it's you isn't it? You're the present day Agent Weasley."

"That I am sir," I said with a nod as I closed the file and carried it over to my filing cabinet.

"What on earth are you doing in today you stupid boy?" Langley blustered in his blunt and unintentionally patronising way, "You're written off for a week to recuperate and that's an order."

"I know sir, I'm just tidying up after myself, I left a lot of confidential files laying around and I wanted to get them locked away safely. I'm going home now I promise."

"Damn fool," Langley scoffed, "never heard of a locking charm? You could have just got your secretary to do one and get all that done when you came back to work, oh but of course," he said with a slap to his shiny forehead, "she's in the bloody hospital herself isn't she?"

"Excuse me?" I blinked.

"Miss Brown, some kind of incident at home, she's off for a week too. In fact if you are heading out yourself would you mind giving her the paid leave paperwork? She can hand it in when she returns tell her, no hurry at all."

I swallowed and took the piece of paper from Langley's chubby hand and nodded.

"Right well go and do that little errand and then go back home to your wife and relax Agent Weasley."

"Fiancée actually sir," I corrected him as he rolled his way back out of the reception area and into the corridor.

"Don't care," he said with a dismissive wave over his shoulder.

I sighed and wondered why Hermione hadn't heard about anything happening to Lavender, I figured that she'd been a little pre occupied with me, and went down to the apparition point to deliver Lavender's paperwork.

_Crack!_

As I approached Lavender's front door I felt a little uneasy, I didn't want to go inside, but I knew that at some point in my life I must do as I was able to travel there the day before. I knocked on the door and looked up and down the street, feeling guilty for being there for some strange reason, and waited while fiddling with the leave papers nervously.

The door opened a crack and I saw a curtain of long blonde hair and a bloodshot eye peering out at me.

"Ron?" Lavender's unsteady voice said

"Yeah it's me, I've just got to give you this, we're both on paid leave for a week and I was just on my way home so..."

She opened the door a little wider and I saw her puffy eyes and pale skin and my throat dried up on me. I silently handed her the papers with a smile.

"I didn't know you were dying," she said with her own strained voice as he took the forms from me.

"I wasn't," I said, "It was just an inflamed appendix, I'm fine."

"No thanks to me," she said quietly as she looked down at her feet, "I heard about it when one of the other secretary's sent me an owl and told me you'd been rushed to your healer. I felt so awful. I'd just left you to die on the floor."

She began to cry and I leaned in a little to rub her arm for comfort.

"Don't be silly, it was just a little thing that got out of hand, all a silly misunderstanding about a cup of coffee."

I knew I'd said the wrong thing before I had even said it. Lavender wailed and I glanced up and down the street anxious to make sure nobody was noticing this little scene.

"I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, I can't stand that I've lost your trust, it means so much to me Ron," she sobbed.

"Don't be silly, what are you talking about? You're just not very well that's all. You've made yourself sick with worry haven't you?" I said as I rubbed her arm a little more and took a step up onto her doorstep.

She looked up at me and sniffed as she wiped her eyes.

"Sick? You mean you don't know? She never told you?"

"Who never told me what?" I smiled nervously.

"Nothing," she shook her head and smiled back at me, "I misunderstood something Neville said that's all, "he's been coming by three times a day to check up on me."

"That's good of him, what with him and Seamus you must be sick of visitors," I said as I made a move to step back down from the doorstep and back onto the pavement but she reached out and took my hand and shook her head, "I ended things with Seamus. It wasn't fair to him. I wasn't in love with him and he was...he thought more of me than I deserve."

"No don't say that," I said as she began to whimper again, "you've got to stop talking about yourself like that Lavender. Are you still seeing that counsellor at the ministry?"

She shook her head.

"I stopped but they're going to make me go again after this otherwise they won't take me back at work," she said as her shoulders shook with the building emotion that she was struggling to keep a lid on.

"After this?" I asked. I was definitely missing a big piece of the puzzle here.

"I thought I'd killed you and I just didn't want to...I wanted to go with you!"

She dissolved into floods of tears and I suddenly realised what Lavender had done. I also saw that the last thing she needed me to do was to run in the opposite direction, confirming her fear that I detested her existence, but I really didn't want to take that step over the threshold into her flat. The second I did that I could be thrust there any time of the day or night butt naked right under the unstable witch's nose.

The thing was I already knew I did it; I had already done it because I had travelled there so there was nothing I could do to prevent it. She was crying into her cupped hands and I couldn't just say 'get well soon' and bugger off. I stepped inside the door and hugged her.

She began to bawl like I'd never heard anybody cry in my life and held on to me as if I was her life support. I felt so useless. No matter how I treated her it was always going to be the wrong way. There was nothing I could do to make this better for her. All I could do is make it much worse in a variety of different ways.

I heard the sound of a throat being cleared and looked over my shoulder to see a very uncomfortable Neville standing behind me with a bunch of flowers.

"Hey look," I said as I tried to break away from her, "I told you ya wouldn't have time to be lonely, Neville's here."

Lavender let me go and I practically jumped back outside into the street and nodded Neville in. He handed her the flowers and she wiped her face and sniffed a thank you to him before kissing him on the cheek. Neville smiled at her and turned back to me.

"Are you coming in for a cuppa Ron?" he asked awkwardly.

"I'm supposed to be at home right now with my feet up, I've already got a bollocking from the boss for showing up at work, if I don't get back soon Hermione'll go spare."

Lavender turned and made her way up the stairs to her flat while Neville leaned out and whispered to me.

"Are you doing ok mate?"

I smiled and nodded, always worried about everybody else that was our Neville, and I began to walk backwards to the apparition point.

"It's nothing is it, an appendicitis? They're just being careful because of the epilepsy thing."

Neville nodded and waved before closing the front door and I heaved a week's worth of sighs all in one and climbed into the photo-me-quick booth to get myself home for a week of doing nothing.

One thing played on my mind just before I disapparated. How could Hermione not have told me about this?


	20. Special Delivery

**Special Delivery**

_1st September 1999 (Ron is 39, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: Weasleys were flooing and apparating here there and everywhere in the wizarding world looking for Bill while I sat with Fleur and tried to remember what kind of breathing women in labour on television shows were always told to do while Mrs Weasley took care of the third mid-witch who had been sent after the other two had stormed out due to the grandmother to be telling them they knew nothing about childbirth and that she could deliver this baby herself.

Fleur had been on the receiving end of quite a painful contraction when she screeched at her mother-in-law to get out of the bedroom and leave the professionals to do their job. That was when Ginny went running for cover and Mrs Weasley had punched the mid-witch out cold and was now trying to re set the poor woman's jaw while the fourth mid-witch was being sent for, presumably with an armed guard, leaving me to hold Fleur's hand and reassure her that everything was going to be ok.

"The boys will track Bill down and he'll get here in time I know it," I smiled while trying not to cry out in pain as I felt on of my fingers crack in Fleur's grip, "and the next medi-witch will be here soon to help relieve some of the pain."

Fleur started crying as another contraction passed.

"What eef the baby eez a real Weezlee? What eef eet doesn't like me like all za rest of zem?"

"They all like you Fleur," I said as I picked up a glass of water and let her take a sip, "we all love you, don't be so silly."

"What eef eet's a Veela baby? Zey are so 'ard to raise 'ermione. I am not good enough, I will be a terrible muzzer!"

She began to cry again and I looked over my shoulder for signs of the mid-witch but the flames in the fireplace were still glowing orange.

"Now Fleur, you will be fantastic I know it," I said with my most confident smile and a nod for extra certainty, "I remember how well you handled baby Ron when he was so upset that day at the Burrow."

Just talking about Ron hurt me a little but I made myself keep smiling.

"But ee eez different, ee just loves everybody, you do not 'ave to do anything to win 'im over. You just 'ave to love 'im back."

That was it, I couldn't do it anymore, I started to cry myself.

"Oh 'ermione, I am zorry, I deed not theenk," she began to console me before screaming as another contraction hit her and I tried to do that breathing thing again but Fleur just looked at me as if I had gone crazy so I stopped.

"It's alright Fleur dear," Molly called back to the bedroom, "I've come to an agreement with the mid-witch and we can work together on this as long as I stay three feet away from her at all times!"

I began to laugh on hearing this, she had sounded so merry about having a magical restraining order enforced upon her, and then I realised that I wasn't laughing at all. Fleur was still shaking off the last of her latest contractions and put her hand on the back of my head in an effort to comfort me. I tried to stop crying, Fleur didn't need this, but the tears just kept coming.

"Poor 'ermione," Fleur said with a smile, she even looked radiant while in the agonies of childbirth, "I beleeve 'im you know?"

"I know you do Fleur," I sniffed, "I just wish I didn't know better than you."

Another contraction hit her and she gripped the hair she had been so tenderly stroking at the back of my head and I screamed along with her as I felt chunks of it coming loose at the roots.

"Oh goodness Fleur, there's no need to bald poor Hermione is there?" Molly said as she pried the mother-to-be's fingers open and I fell backwards onto the floor holding my sore scalp and forgetting exactly what I had been crying about originally and focusing on my own physical pain.

Now that Fleur had the attention she deserved I retreated from the room, thinking about finding Ginny and hiding out with her, and jumped as two cracks sounded on either side of me and the twins asked me if Bill had turned up yet.

"No he's still missing," I said, over Fleur's screams.

Fred and George cringed and disapparated without another word to continue their search.

"Oh Molee," Fleur was weeping, "what eef zumthing eez wrong with za baby?"

"Now don't be silly dear, you're going to have a lovely healthy baby I promise you," Molly was saying warmly while the mid-witch cast some pain relieving spells.

"But what eef ze baby 'as epilepsee like Ronald?"

I froze on the spot and hugged my arms to myself.

"Don't be silly worrying yourself about that dear," Molly said with a shush.

Fleur was crying again.

"But I don't want my baybee to dizappear, I don't want eet to get 'urt like Ronald does all ze time."

"No dear, no mother wants that," Molly said with a strange wobble in her voice.

"And eet might 'ave ze epilepsy, eet eez 'ereditary like Arzzur zed."

"Only to the seventh in the family, that's always been the way so far so why would it change now eh?" Molly said in an effort to calm Fleur's nerves.

I didn't want to be the one to point out that Ron wasn't actually the seventh child at all; Fleur seemed too distracted to have noticed it so I let it be.

"You are sure?" Fleur said.

"I promise you dear now don't you worry about this little life you're bringing into the world, just concentrate on bringing it."

The fireplace erupted in green flames and two red haired figures stumbled out of it. It was Bill and Ron.

"Go!" Ron said to his brother who scrambled to his feet and ran frantically for the bedroom where Fleur greeted with a Molly Weasley sized roar demanding to know what had taken him so long.

I looked back and saw Ron getting to his feet and brushing the soot off of a very baggy looking shirt and a huge pair of trousers that he was holding up with one hand, they were obviously not his clothes, and I then realised that he looked too old to have been my Ron. He looked over at me and grinned that grin of his, the one that could bring the sunshine out in the middle of a storm, and I looked away. It hurt to see him from any time at the moment.

"Oh right," he said and I glanced back at him as he seemed to realise something, "you're not talking to me right now are you?"

I straightened myself up and looked him hard in the eye.

"You know what you did so don't make those puppy-dog eyes at me."

He smiled at me again, not the sunshine smile but a enigmatic little smile that reflected his sad eyes, and I wondered what he knew. He looked strangely wise and that wasn't like Ron at all.

"I never lied to you y'know? And I never made a promise I knew I couldn't keep."

I was about to scoff at him when he grabbed a handful of floo powder and tossed it into the fire, stepping into the flames and leaving without another word.

"You're the only one who doesn't believe him Hermione," Ginny said from behind me.

I bit my lip and heard the sound of a baby crying.

* * *

_20th June 2000 and 22nd May 1981 (Ron is 20 and 1)_

RON: I was meeting Harry at Auror HQ when Eldridge grabbed me and hauled me into a strange empty room just before I reached the lift. He put his forearm to my throat and pressed hard. I made a gagging noise and pulled at his Popeye-like arm while attempting to glare at the head of Auror operations with some degree of composure. It's quite difficult to appear menacing while turning blue though.

"Listen, I know you think you're working for the same people as me Weasley but you're not, you are the enemy. You are interfering with top secret Auror business."

He pressed down on my windpipe and I tore my right hand away from his wrist and plunged it into my robes for my wand. He saw this without even moving his focus from my face, which was an inch away from his own, and grabbed my wrist and pinned it above my head. I felt dizzy, he wasn't letting up on the pressure on my throat, and I couldn't quite believe that Eldridge intended to kill me but he was making his point much more vigorously than maybe even he realised.

"Now I don't know whom you answer to," he snarled into my face, "what power player in the ministry is assigning you to look into the private and official movements of my colleagues, but it stops now you hear?"

I couldn't see straight, I couldn't breathe, and I was beyond panic. I hoped that this was pre time-travel nausea and not suffocation. I needed to get out of his grip soon. My head was spinning and my legs buckled under me. Eldridge held me up by the pressure against my throat and the last thing I heard was the door creaking open and Harry's voice.

"Sir I'm going to have to insist you let Agent Weasley go before you kill him and I know that's not what you want."

I felt the pressure and the room around me evaporate and gasped the warm air into my lungs as if I hadn't inhaled in a month. I coughed and wheezed and tried to massage my throat to allow more air to reach my lungs. It was then I realised I was on my bedroom floor at the Burrow.

I saw my empty cot and my teddy bear looking very pre-spider. I had taken another of my trips back to the beginning of my life and I knew that I'd have to go to Bill's room if I wanted to borrow clothes that would fit. I managed to laugh to myself about that. Even in my adulthood I was still stuck with my older brother's hand-me-downs.

I heard a baby crying downstairs as I tiptoed along the landing and down a flight of stairs to Bill's room. He, and subsequently most of his clothes, was away at Hogwarts so I had little choice other than a faded blue T-shirt and an almost completely worn at the knee pair of beige corduroy trousers. I knew that I had to get shoes from Charlie's room as he was the biggest of all of us and had the most shoes, covering the last three or four growth spurts, and rushed across the hall to his quiet room.

As I laced the battered trainers I heard the baby scream an ear-piercing scream again.

Bloody hell I thought mum said I was a pleasant baby.

As I opened the window to Charlie's bedroom and climbed out to shimmy down the drainpipe I heard another scream, not my own infant scream this time, it was my mother's. I lost my grip and fell the rest of the way down, landing hard in the potato patch on top of several gnomes to boot, and ran to the kitchen door.

"Mu...Madam?" I called as I knocked on the door frantically, "I heard a scream, is everything all right in there?"

The door swung open and there, in her bare feet and clutching an enormous pregnant belly, was my mother. She was doubled over in pain, tears in her eyes and floo powder all over the floor beneath her, while my infant self screamed in his high chair at our mother's obvious distress.

"I'm a little busy at the moment," she said as she forced a smile onto her face, "What did you want?"

This woman never ceased to amaze me, manners at a time like this, and I tried to think on my feet.

"Madam I'm a little lost and was looking for a home on the floo network so I could get where I need to go. I saw this place and, well it's obviously a wizarding home, so I thought I might try my luck."

A wave of agony washed over my mother and she let out a little whimper, bracing herself against the open door, before she forced another smile on her face and gestured to the floo powder that had spilled all over the floor.

"If you can scrape together enough from the floor you're more than welcome dear but would I be able to ask you one small favour in return?"

I moved forward and tried to support her, she really seemed to need to sit down, and I guided her backwards into one of the nearby kitchen chairs.

"Of course, anything you need, do you want me to get your husband to come home or get help from St Mungo's?"

She seemed to be recovering from the last burst of discomfort and gave me a chuckle.

"No dear I really need you to get _me_ to St Mungo's quite urgently."

I looked at the fireplace and then back to my heavily pregnant mother before turning my eyes back down to the floo powder scattered all over the floor.

"I don't think you should floo mu...madam, not in your condition."

She let out a sigh and attempted to sit up a little straighter.

"Call me Molly."

I nodded and looked back to the fireplace.

"Well it'll be a bit too physical Molly, you could have a contraction while in there and knock your belly against something."

I kept my eyes focused upon the fireplace and tried to come up with a plan. I knew what the family legend said I did but I really couldn't do that right now, not me, I'm not the accomplished flier Harry is. Mum yelped and bent over again, gritting her teeth through another contraction and my younger self broke into louder and more distressing floods of tears.

"Come now Ronnie, mummy needs you to be a brave boy right now."

I looked back at her instinctively on hearing her address me directly and indirectly at the same time. She was right, she didn't need my inferiority complex right now, she needed the Ron who faced Aragog and Death Eaters and helped vanquish Voldemort.

"Molly do you have a decent broom in the house?" I asked.

Her bloodshot eyes met my own fearful ones and she nodded.

"In the broom shed outside, I've Charlie's quiddich broom from last year, there's been a few modifications made to it but then he won that snitch seeker competition run by the Prophet last summer and won a Cleansweep seven...brand new professional sporting broom that is. Did you see the Prophet? Charlie's picture was the big one beneath the headline..."

Mum stopped to growl as another contraction took her attention away from her motherly boasts and I moved behind her and rubbed her back until it passed.

"It said Weasley wins with ease," I continued for her as the pain subsided and she relaxed a little once again.

I had grown up seeing that article flashed under the nose of any visitor to the Burrow over the years. The Charlie Weasley scrapbook was the fattest of the lot.

"Oh thank you...what's your name again dear," she said in her least tactful, 'are you another distant relative of mine that I can't quite place?', way.

"John," I figured it sounded enough like Ron for me to answer to it and general enough for it to be realistic that they never find me to thank me after Ginny's born.

"Well thank you John, you have no idea how good that feels. Have you done this before?"

"I went to a pre-natal class with my wife once," I found myself smiling.

"Wife?" How old are you John dear? You surely can't be old enough to have a wife and baby already."

"I don't," I said without thinking, "what I mean to say is not yet, I don't have a baby yet."

Mum looked up at me and beamed while looking in the most awful pain at the same time.

"Oh that's why you're so keen to get home. Your wife's soon to be in the same state as I am eh?"

I shook my head, why wasn't I just going along with this? Something in me didn't want to be a father until I really and truly was.

"No, well she will be someday but not for a while, we're...we're not having a baby right now," I smiled and hoped that the subject would be dropped.

I watched as my mother's face fell and she looked utterly devastated. She reached up to me and rested her sweaty palm upon my cheek.

"Oh you poor things, a miscarriage was it? Oh but if you were going to classes and preparing for his stage of the pregnancy she must've been about due, not a still birth dear?"

I had no other explanation to make all the things I had just said add up so I nodded and watched as the tears flowed down my mother's cheeks as she pulled me down to her in her sitting position and held me close to her.

"Oh I'm so sorry John, I know exactly how you feel dear, the same thing happened to me the year before little Ronnie was born."

I flinched and pulled back.

"I never knew that!" I blurted as I stared at her as her son and not the stranger she had been comforting.

"Well why would you," she said with confusion, "the Prophet doesn't report things like that."

I nodded and crouched down before her, I did my best to smile through the shock of hearing I was the seventh of eight children and not the sixth of seven but mum obviously mistook my sadness for my own fictional lost child, and I held her hands in mine.

"Look Molly, I'll go get the broom and you sit with the baby and take deep breaths for me ok?"

She tensed through another contraction before nodding and releasing my hands.

"Go," she gasped and waved me out the back door.

I ran for the broom shed and forced open the door.

"Ah so that's why we can never lock it in the future!"

Then I grabbed Charlie's old broom and ran back to the house where I heard mum in the throes of another contraction and helped her to breathe through the pain.

"Ronnie..." she panted.

"I'm here, it's ok, I'm right here," I said.

"No _Ron_, the baby," my mother said, obviously thinking I'd miss-heard her the first time, "Do you think you'll be able to fly with both of us?"

I realised what she was saying.

"Oh shit of course, I've never flown with a baby before, what if I drop him?"

Mum gripped my arm tightly.

"You won't, I have faith in you John," she grimaced, "these contractions are too close together now, we need to go."

I nodded and heaved her up before moving around the table to lift myself out of the high chair. The three of us made our way outside where mum mounted the brook sidesaddle and I sat in the middle with the baby in front of me.

So this was my first flight. No wonder I'm not scared of heights.

I kicked off from the ground and flew my awkward load as fast as I could toward London and St Mungo's. I would have to hold the broom steady as a rock during mum's contractions and my infant self would get very upset every time he heard his mother crying out with pain but we made good time and I landed in an empty alleyway where I hid the broom up a broken drainpipe and guided my waddling mother to the entrance to the wizarding hospital. The baby squirmed in my arms and screamed his head off when mum was taken away into a side room by mid witches.

I was directed to a nursery I could leave the baby until the family arrived to take care of me and I set myself down into a large white cot with drawings of bunnies and ducklings all over it. As I turned to leave baby Ron began screaming and I hoped that dad and my grandparents would arrive soon to look after me and be there for mum. Then the screaming stopped abruptly and I rushed back to check on the baby but he wasn't there, just a pile of clothing and a smelly nappy. I had upset myself so much I had gone time travelling.

I frowned at the spot a baby should've been and thought of my mother. All these infant disappearances must have been harder on her than I ever gave her credit for, especially after losing a baby only a year before.

I wished I had asked her if it was a boy or a girl, asked anything about it, and I wondered if they had given it a name.

I left St Mungo's and felt my stomach roar its disapproval at being neglected all this time. I didn't have anybody to go to this early on in my life so I'd have to steal something. I was walking towards a nearby market, the best place for a hungry time traveller pinching food, when I staggered forward and felt the nausea while the vivid colours of the market place blurred and faded into darkness.

I hit the stone floor hard on my back and heard voices as I tried my hardest not to throw up, at least not until I was bending over, and suddenly there were hands on my upper arms pulling me into a sitting position and covering my privates with a jacket or something.

"Ron, Ron are you alright?"

It was Harry.

"What the hell is going on? How did he do that?"

That sounded like Eldridge.

"Shut up and give him some air, light your wand too I need to make sure he's alright," Harry ordered.

"I'm fine Harry, the Burrow in summertime, didn't get into any trouble don't worry," I croaked.

"Did you eat?" my best friend asked as I regained the ability to focus and looked into his worried face.

"What was that Agent Weasley? Was that apparition? How did you do that when I had you immobilised?"

"Eldridge, I've already told you once now, leave him alone," Harry snarled.

Eldridge looked incredibly offended, his wiry straw blonde hair seemed to glow against his red face.

"Might I remind you Potter that I am your superior?"

"And might I remind _you_ sir that attempting to kill a ministry agent is an offence punishable with twenty years in Azkaban?"

I struggled to my feet and pulled my clothes back on while all of this was bubbling out of control.

"Listen Mr Eldridge I'll come and find you after lunch and I'll explain and Harry, it's ok I can look after myself alright? But right now I have to floo home."

Harry blinked at me as I hopped up and down, putting my shoe on, and steadied me with his arm.

"What is it mate, what's wrong? Hermione won't be there remember, she's at work too."

"Not that home Harry, the Burrow, I need to talk to my mother."

Harry had other questions, as did Eldridge, but I didn't wait around for them. Instead I ran for the fireplaces in the lobby and jumped into the nearest outgoing floo, taking a handful of powder and throwing it into the small flame at my feet.

"The Burrow!"

I disappeared in a blast of green flames and watched the blur of fireplaces zoom past my eyes before the kitchen at the Burrow came into focus. It didn't really look all that different to how I'd left it back in 1981. I called out.

"Mum, are you home? Mum it's Ron."

He heard her footsteps on the stairs and ran to the bottom of them to meet her.

"Ronnie dear, whatever is the matter, are you hurt? Are you travelling?"

She clasped my face in her hands and looked at me closely for any telltale signs of damage or distress.

"I just got back."

"Where from?"

"1981, I was talking you to St Mungo's."

Mum's face broke into a wide grin.

"Oh Ronnie I can finally thank you and have you know exactly what I'm talking about!" she threw her arms around me and planted a wet kiss on my cheek.

I needed to get right to the point and pulled away, she looked confused and worried at this so I took her hand in both of mine and pulled her to sit down on the stairs with me, face-to-face.

"Listen mum there's something I need to ask you."

"Go ahead Ron, what's the matter?" she looked so concerned that her past self had upset me that I wondered if this was really necessary.

I decided it was.

"Mum what was the baby's name?"

She could see how serious I was and tried not to smile at this strange question.

"Why Ginny of course, you know your own sister's name Ronald."

"No mum," I said with a squeeze of her hand, "the baby before me, did you name the baby that died?"

Her face fell and so did her head. She pulled her hand away from mine and wiped her face with a sniff before looking back at me with watery eyes.

"Oh Ronnie, yes we named him, it was another boy, a beautiful red-haired baby boy who never opened his eyes to let me see the colour of them.

I swallowed and mum took back my hand.

"We named him John."

My eyes went wide.

"But..."

Mum smiled and shushed me before carrying on.

"Until you explained this whole time-travelling thing to me I always told myself that John became my guardian angel and it was him who came to me that day and bought Ginny into the world safely."

"I lowered my head.

"I'm sorry."

Mum lifted my chin and fixed my gaze with her own.

"You needn't apologise for anything Ronald Weasley, you were an even better person to have help me. You are a real life person and John was just a dream I let myself believe that's all."

"But I never meant to take your dream away from you mum, that's awful, I'm so sorry."

She gave me two more wet kisses on hearing that, one on the other cheek and the other to middle of my forehead.

"You're my dream come true Ronnie. Don't ever be sorry for being able to be there for me, for Ginny, and don't you ever think that you're second best. Promise me Ron."

I closed my eyes to stop the tears from coming.

"I promise."

"Open your eyes and promise me Ron!" my mother shook me by the shoulders and I looked her in the eye, "I waited too long to see another pair of baby blues, I won't let you hide them from me now."

I opened my eyes and said it again.

"I promise."

We hugged at the bottom of the stairs for five minutes, holding each other tightly and rocking from side to side with wordless understanding, before breaking apart and looking into each other's eyes again. Mum pushed my hair out of my face and sniffled quietly.

"When do you cut this all off, I can't wait until you stop hiding behind this mop.

I chuckled.

"Not until I get married I'm afraid, and it gets long again after that remember?"

Mum had seen me at forty apparently, I had tea with her for seven minutes and told her she was a grandmother before disappearing, and had said that I wasn't grey or bald but in fact sporting shoulder length red hair that was being kept a little neater than I have it now.

"What can I say mum," I shrug, "I'm not one for grooming."

She laughed and set off toward the kitchen to feed me up.

"So very thin these days," she mumbled under her breath while I followed her through and sat in the yard while she prepared lunch.

I wondered if I was crushing anybody else's fantasy of a guardian angel with my revelation that I was a time traveller. Maybe in future I'll try to remain anonymous and enigmatic at times like that.

I massaged my throat, it was bound to be bruised by now; she would notice and get all angry and outraged. Hermione would go spare too. I hoped I could get Eldridge to understand, I know I could as I've been to a future where he is my friend, and I hoped that Harry didn't get himself into too much trouble after I left them.

Although I do suspect he'll find himself on quite a few unglamorous assignments for a while now.


	21. See You Around

**See You Around**

_8th June 1999 (Ron is 19 and 43, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: I had finally escaped work to grab a bite to eat when I bumped into Parvati Patil, quite literally, on the street.

"I'm sorry I...Hermione!"

"Hello Parvati, sorry about that I was miles away," I said as I twirled my finger around at the side of my head to indicate the direction my thoughts had been spiralling out of my head.

"No it was my fault, I was just rushing and not paying attention to where I was going, I'm sorry."

I laughed at this.

"Well let's say we're both sorry then."

"Okay," she smiled before heaving a deep sigh and looking suddenly tired, "So I take it you heard about Lavender? Everybody else seems to have."

I bit my bottom lip and nodded.

"How's she doing now, Ron's still on sick leave so we haven't heard anything about how she is right now."

Parvati slapped herself on the forehead.

"Of course, Dean told me about that, poor Ron eh? Lucky somebody found him in time wasn't it?"

I didn't think Dean and Parvati had been told about Lavender leaving Ron in pain the way she did and I didn't see any point in bringing it up now so I just nodded and smiled a relieved smile. Parvati gestured for me to walk with her and we continued on down the street chatting.

"So he's still off work, Ron I mean, that's unusual isn't it? Appendicitis can be dealt with within the day by the healers at St Mungo's. Padma was in an out in an afternoon with hers I remember."

"Well he has another condition that they didn't want to aggravate so..."

I flinched as Parvati slapped herself in the head again.

"Godric what's with me today? The epilepsy thing, of course, oh just don't bother with me today Hermione I can't pull it together at all."

I gave her a smile of sympathy and listened as she explained her predicament to me.

"I don't know if you heard but Lavender and I kind of...fell out over the way she was behaving," Parvati glanced at me, not knowing whether or not I knew what Lavender had done to Ron or not, "and then Dean came back from visiting Neville and Seamus and he told me what she'd done. I just felt sick Hermione. She's not been well and I just cut her loose like that."

I rubbed Parvati's back to comfort her.

"Oh come on now, it's hard to know what is the right thing to do in these circumstances, don't torture yourself over it."

Parvati shook her head and shrugged.

"Well anyway I'm going over to Lavender's now to see her for the first time since I called her all the despicable names under the sun and turned my back on her. I'm kind of nervous."

I hadn't realised Lavender lived around my place of work.

"Well good luck, I hope she's doing better now, I really do."

My old roommate smiled at me and rubbed my back in return.

"I know you do Hermione. You haven't got a spiteful bone in your body. I know that her actions must have hurt you but nobody thinks you're glad to see her in this state."

We walked a little further before reaching a crossroads and paused.

"Well I go this way," Parvati said as she pointed to her left.

"I go straight on," I smiled before hugging Parvati and stepping back to cross the road and visit my favourite cafe.

I'd only just looked left and right to check for traffic when Parvati called back to me.

"Hermione, is that Ron?"

I spun around, expecting to see a naked travelling version of my fiancé who I knew to be lounging around the flat at home. I had flooed him just before I left the office and saw that he was asleep on the sofa and decided not to wake him. As I followed the invisible line drawn from Parvati's finger further down the street to my left I saw Ron standing on a doorstep talking to somebody.

He wasn't naked and he wasn't looking lost but he was looking a lot older, about forty in fact, and I took a step closer to Parvati as she lowered her arm and looked at me with a frown.

"It's a different one, he must be travelling," I mumble, "I'd better go over there and see if he's alright."

"That's Lavender's place he's just come out of," Parvati said as she looked back and I froze on the spot.

Sure enough, as Ron stepped off the doorstep and onto the pavement Lavender leaned out the door wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Her arms were folded across her chest and she looked quite dishevelled but was smiling at Ron. Ron looked down at his feet and kicked absent-mindedly at something as the two of them spoke about something and Lavender reached out her hand to him. He took a step away from her and shook his head. She let her arm drop and nodded sadly.

I felt Parvati staring at me with her mouth hanging open.

"He doesn't have a choice where he appears," I began to explain to her while feeling empty inside to think that all those years in the future Ron has to deal with the Lavender problem.

Just as Parvati was about to respond I saw Lavender sink back inside and Ron run back to the door and jump inside. Before I knew what I was doing I was leaning over to try and see inside the open door and I could just make out Ron's back and Lavender's arms around him. I couldn't see their faces. I felt Parvati gripping my hand.

"Oh Hermione I'm so sor-"

"It's not what you think!" I snapped; my hands balled into tight fists, "she's just upset and he comforting her, that's all it is. He's just comforting her."

"Of course, I mean she's just tried to kill herself, of course he's just consoling her. I didn't mean to imply there was anything going on."

"Forget it," I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the embrace in the open doorway that was still going on.

Why hadn't the broken apart yet? Why wasn't Ron backing away from her again? Why was he letting Lavender pull at his clothes like that?

"I just meant that it must be hard to see him with Lavender while she's in the middle of her infatuation that's all," Parvati was still covering her tracks but I wasn't listening to her anymore.

I was just waiting for that damn hug to end. He wasn't pulling away from her. He wasn't tensed-up and he wasn't pulling away from her. What was going on over there?

Finally, after what felt like hours, Ron hopped back out onto the street with a genuine smile on his face. Lavender said something to him with her own real smile and Ron let out a laugh while pointing back at her with delight shining in his eyes.

"Now _that's_ the girl I like!" he beamed.

Parvati gasped and I almost screamed out loud, covering my mouth and muffling the next thing that Ron said with equal joy evident on his face.

"It's a mistake," I said as I turned and ran back in the direction of my lab.

"Hermione wait!" I heard Parvati calling from behind me.

She ran to catch me up and I picked up my pace and tried to regain my composure.

"We didn't see the whole thing, we only know the half of what went on there Hermione, don't think the worst," Parvati said breathlessly.

"I'm not, it's a mistake, I told you. It's not what we thought we saw," I said as I broke in to a slight jog to try and lose my companion, "It's not."

"Hermione wait, where are you going?" Parvati wheezed as she pulled up with what I suspected was a stitch in her side.

"Go and visit your friend," I yelled over my shoulder, "I'm sure she'll give you all the juicy gossip you need!"

I broke into a run and ran all the way back to the lab, jumped over Tippy the house elf and hurled a handful of floo powder into the fireplace.

"The hornet's nest!" I shouted as the green flames engulfed me and spat me out into my own living room.

Ron jolted awake from his spot, reclined on the sofa, and I dropped to my knees and closed my mouth over his and kissed him with almost territorial ferocity. He didn't really respond to the kiss, still partly asleep and partly in shock at my sudden appearance, and I pulled away from him and stared him directly in the eye.

"You know I love you don't you Ron?" I said, holding his face with both my hands.

"Yeah," Ron said, as if fearing his answer might anger me while trying to understand my uncharacteristic behaviour.

"You know I trust you don't you?" I said, maintaining my intense focus on him.

"Yes, Hermione what...?" he began to try to find out what had upset me so much but I had one final question for him before I let him go and went back to work without another word.

"You know that, no matter what happens, I will always love you and trust you and you will always be mine and mine alone right?"

"Always," Ron responded with a fearful kind of sincerity.

He really meant it. I just hoped that he still meant it in twenty years time.

* * *

_9th June 1999 (Ron is 19 and 41, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: I don't know why I was doing it. Well I do, I know exactly why I was doing it, but I don't know why I putting myself through this torture. What did I expect to see?

Ron was back at work now and I wanted to find out if Lavender was too. Not that it would be of any comfort to me to discover that she was of course. That would just mean she was with my Ron, risking his life or trying to seduce him again, rather than her Ron from the future.

I mentally kicked myself. What was I thinking? He wasn't her Ron, Lavender never had a Ron, and he wasn't even her Ron when they were going out at school. I hated myself for thinking about what I saw yesterday. I don't want to ruin the trust I've built up with Ron over this whole Lavender thing by getting obsessed with his future travels. Future travels that he has no control over I might add. He can't help appearing in Lavender's flat can he?

I was deliberately passing by her street for the fifth time that day when I saw something out of the corner of my eye that made my heart constrict in my chest. Ron was peering around the side of somebody's house, wearing a white bed sheet he had obviously had to steal from a muggle washing line, and running across the street to Lavender's front door to knock while glancing up and down the street to make sure nobody had seen him.

He was another older version of Ron. In his late thirties or early forties by the width of his shoulders and style of his hair. He knocked on the door again before stepping back and looking up at Lavender's window. I wondered why he was trying to get into Lavender's place rather than disapparating to our street or the ministry to get something to wear.

I hid behind a bright red post box as I saw him glancing up and down the street again before reaching up into a hanging basket of flowers and pulling out a silver key. He opened the front door and disappeared inside. I felt my knees go weak.

Ron and Lavender had a secret key. Ron knew where to find the spare key to let himself into her flat whenever he showed up on his travels. Lavender had hidden it there just for him. They had some kind of arrangement that I didn't know about.

I went to the nearest apparition point and disapparated over to the ministry. I passed Seamus along the way up to Ron's department, he said something to me but I just motored onwards to get to Ron's office.

"...Longbottom's just come back down," Seamus called after me, "ever since he started working here he's up there talking to Lavender five times a day, I wouldn't worry about your man there Hermione!"

He sounded bitter. He had ever right to be. He had been rejected in favour of Ron and usurped as Lavender's second choice by Neville. I hadn't really spoken to either of them since Lavender's suicide attempt but I got the feeling that they weren't going to remain flat mates for much longer. Not if Neville wanted to bring Lavender round to stay.

I almost seethed at the idea of Lavender cheating on Neville behind his back, and then remembered that if she was she was doing it with Ron. I almost threw up in the lift as it jerked to a halt on the top floor and I leapt out and rushed towards Ron's office.

Lavender's desk was empty. I didn't know if that meant she was at the flat with the older Ron or inside Ron's office with his present self. Either scenario made me fume.

"Lavender I can't let you keep misreading every little kindness I show you as something else," it sounded like Ron, I froze and bit my lip, choosing to eavesdrop outside the door rather than go inside, "it's driving me nuts."

I heard movement and glanced through the crack in the door to see Ron squirming to get Lavender's hands off him, before she shoved him roughly out of view and stomped towards him. I felt a fire ignite inside me and tried not to scream.

"But I'm sick of waiting Ron!" Lavender was shouting at him, "I know you end up with me. I know we can be happy together. Why else do you keep coming to me more and more?"

"I'm not coming to you," Ron says with exasperation.

I can't listen to this anymore, I need to talk to the present day Ron about the activities of his future self and take a step towards the door.

"You'll come around eventually," she said with steely determination that made my blood run cold and took the wind out from my sails, "and I can wait for that day Ron, I can wait as long as it takes, but please don't make me wait alone?" I couldn't hear any more of this and turned to run as far away from this office as possible, "Let me at least have this..." Lavender was saying as my own footsteps drowned the sound of her voice out completely.

She was making a play for both Ron's. She'd already got her man in the future it seemed and I was going to be damned if she got him in the present as well.

* * *

_June 22nd 1999 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: I have the sightings all written down in front of me.

Most of them I have made myself. I have become such a mess over all of this that I have now begun stalking my own fiancé.

13th June - Leaving Lavender's flat while still getting dressed.

15th June - Storming out of Lavender's flat while being chased by semi-clad Lavender. They have quite a debate in the middle of the street before Ron looks up at the sky and shakes his head, gives her a hug and walks back inside the flat with her as she puts her arm around him and smiles.

17th June - Another marathon hugging session on her front doorstep.

19th June - A Ron who had just appeared moments earlier at my lab and got dressed quickly before asking for the date rushes out 'to do a thing', takes Lavender's door key from the hanging basket and lets himself inside.

20th June - Ginny mentions that she spotted Ron sitting the park with Lavender, hugging her and mumbling things into her hair while she nodded and smiled. Ginny is, _"...sure he was just comforting her while she was off on one Hermione."_

Yesterday - Neville comes to our front door in a hell of a mood and demands to see Ron, who is travelling, and tells me that he has just been asked to back off from Lavender by a forty one year old Ron and is looking for an explanation.

And so we reach today. The day I cannot deny the evidence any longer. The day I must protect myself from the future heartbreak. The day I ask Ron to leave.

I go the wardrobe and take out an armful of his clothes before transfiguring two suitcases from a pair of tattered old shoeboxes.

I begin to pack Ron's bags.


	22. Second Time Around

**Second Time Around**

_8th June 1999 (Ron is 43)_

RON: Back at Lavender Brown's flat again. I'm never away from this place these days. It's like the researchers into my condition keep saying to me; the gravity of the situation will pull more and more versions of me toward it. I know why I keep coming back here but I also know that fighting against what is already done is useless.

I am already half dressed from the batch of clothing she always keeps ready for me when she shuffles in from her bedroom in her bathrobe.

"Hello Ron," she smiles wearily.

"Is it early? Sorry go back to bed, I'll be out of your hair in a tick."

"I don't want you out of my hair Ron, you know that," she says quietly as she moves towards me slowly, "and it's the middle of the afternoon so I should be out of bed really. You've just given me the motivation to face the day."

I lace up the shoe I've been struggling with while attempting to maintain eye contact with her and get a read on her mood. Finally I finish the job and stand up straight and begin to suspect what time of year it is.

"You've not done anything silly have you?" I frown as I pull a jacket around my shoulders.

"What like nearly killing you y'mean? Something silly like that?" she shook her head and looked down at her feet.

Yup, I was right, she'd just tried to kill herself. I stepped forward and gave her a hug, I felt her arms snake around me and I rubbed her back in small soothing circles.

"I've already done this but I'll do it again alright? I forgive you. You were upset and you thought it was just a stomach cramp ok? So did I until just after you left. I don't want to hear any more of this from you ok?"

I felt her nod her head against me.

"Lavender," I swallowed, I shouldn't be trying this, and I knew it wouldn't work but I couldn't stop myself, "you'll never know how much you are loved I'm telling you now so you do know alright? You are loved so passionately and fiercely and obsessively that it becomes a force to be reckoned with because you choose to ignore it and waste your love on me. Let your boyfriend love you, please Lavender because he really does."

She looked up into my eyes with red ones of her own and sniffs.

"I don't have a boyfriend anymore Ron, you know that?"

I let her go and lower my head to look right into her eyes.

"What you don't have somebody who is always coming to your door, never giving up on you and falling apart without you because he's fallen for you in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

I see her face light up and she's about to get the wrong end of the stick. Shit, I _knew _this was a bad idea! Never trust your own judgement as far as Lavender's concerned.

"Oh Ron!" she was almost glowing as she reached for me.

"Wrong time meaning this moment in time when you're convinced that you're meant to be with me. You're not Lavender. We're never going to be an us, not where I'm coming from, not now, not ever."

It was harsh but I couldn't risk her getting touchy like she had done last time, she'd threatened to overdose right in front of me when I rejected her that day.

"But," she looked so lost and confused, "who else is there for me if not you?"

"You know who Lavender, who _apart_ from me is at your door at all hours of the day and night?"

"I hate breaking his heart," she said as she lowered her head, "he was the only person who thought I was worth taking a chance on despite my feelings for you."

I smiled and shook my head.

"From the way I remember it you were fighting them off, don't sell yourself short."

"No, I've got you for that haven't I?" she said with a steely coldness.

"Look I'm sorry I was a bit abrupt in saying no just then but..."

"Not you, the you I have to see at work next week. The you who thinks I'm trying to drug him into sleeping with me."

I was losing my patience with her now.

"Lavender we've had this conversation too many times already as well. I don't drink coffee!"

She lifted her hand to rest upon my cheek and smiled up at me.

"Stay with me until you have to leave?" she pleaded with me.

I took her hand in mine and lifted it away from my face.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

She choked back a wave of tears and was about to throw her usual threat my way so I blocked it with my keeper reflexes before she could even form the first word on her chapped lips.

"You won't try it again either! I've fallen for that little game before and we don't play that anymore. I'm going to go and you are going to book some sessions with your counsellor right?"

She swallowed and nodded.

"Good girl," I smiled.

She insisted on showing me out and as I stepped out onto the street and turned back to face her she folded her arms across her chest and leaned out to whisper something to me.

"I'm going to try not to love you so much," she smiled.

I knew it was a lie and couldn't look her in the eye as she told me what she thought I wanted to hear rather than instructed herself to fulfil that hollow promise. I kicked at a pebble and she spoke again, holding her hand out to me.

"Ron," I looked up at her, "come back inside and tell me all the wonderful things I have to look forward to."

I took a step back out of her reach and shook my head to decline her request.

"I think the less time you spend around me the better don't you?"

She lowered her arm and nodded.

She stepped back inside and I was about to turn and walk away when she called back to me with a crack in her voice and tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I do have a future don't I Ron?"

I ran back to her and jumped onto the doorstep to hug her as she cried on my shoulder.

"Of course you do. You have a bright future with lots of fun and laughs and you're never alone, not ever alright?"

She was still crying loudly onto my shoulder, giving me no indication that she was listening to me.

"Alright?" I repeated firmly.

"Yes," she squeaked.

She gripped handfuls of my jacket and shook with sobs as I rocked her gently and shushed her over and over again.

"And do I still have you as my friend?" she said, her voice muffled into my chest.

"I can swear to you on my little girl's life that there is not a single year that goes by when we don't have each other okay?"

This seemed to convince her to let me go. She released me and I stepped back into the street and smiled at her.

"I forgot you have a daughter now, I can't go lusting after somebody's dad can I? That's just disgusting!" she gave a watery laugh.

I laughed a relaxed laugh back at her and pointed at her as I began to walk away.

"Now _that's_ the girl I like. Where did she go?"

* * *

_9th June 1999 (Ron is 19)_

RON: I was about to file all of the paperwork I had hastily jammed back into the filing cabinet on Parker properly when Lavender cleared her throat from over my shoulder and stepped into the office.

"What is it Lavender?" I said as I dropped one of the field reports onto the floor, scattering its contents all over the place.

She rushed forward to help me gather up the papers.

"No don't I'll do it myself," I glanced up and saw her hurt expression, "it's confidential stuff Lavender, that's the only reason I can't let you help me ok?"

She nodded stiffly and took a step backwards while I swept all the papers back into the file and jammed them back into the draw of the filing cabinet, even messier than they had been before. I closed the draw and turned around to face her.

"So what was it you wanted?" I asked.

She was looking over my shoulder at the filing cabinet thoughtfully.

"You're giving up on the investigation into Auror Parker then?"

"I can't tell you that," I said as I moved back to sit at my desk.

"But he saved your life didn't he?" she blurted and I froze on the spot, "Do you think that maybe it's a little unseemly to investigate somebody who helped you in your time of need? Is that why you're putting his files away?"

I ran my hand through my hair and tried to explain myself in the most professional way possible.

"I can't continue the investigation now that there is a real possibility that the person I'm investigating knows he's being investigated. I had my little medical emergency while all his files were lying open and I've got to assume that he saw them there. So no Lavender, I will not be continuing that particular investigation as it's pointless now that the subject is aware of his actions being monitored okay?"

Wow, that was a mouthful.

"Of course, whatever you say sir," oh she's playing the hurt feelings card now, what does she want from me?

"Lavender what...?"

"It was just that I thought if Auror Parker was a nasty character then he would have left you to die when he saw that he was being investigated."

"I'm not saying he's dodgy, I'm just trying to suss him out that's all. Now what did you come in here for?"

She placed a handwritten note on my desk and took a step back towards the door.

"You have a re-briefing with Langley at four to catch up on the week you missed."

I nodded.

"Right thanks Lavender."

She was turning to leave and I was turning to continue on to sit at my desk when something seemed to hit me and stop me in my tracks. It was only for a second but it was as if my whole body was numb and loose. I couldn't finish my journey to the desk and I couldn't make a sound. Suddenly the feeling lifted and I staggered a little as my momentum came back to be.

"Ron?" Lavender asked as she rushed back over to me, "What is it, do you need your healer again? I'll floo St Mungo's immediately."

"No wait," I said as I shook my head to clear it, Lavender stepped closer to me and rested her hand upon my back, "It's fine. I'm fine it's nothing."

She pushed me into my chair and looked me in the eye with curiosity.

"What just happened to you?"

"I just couldn't move for a second, it was nothing, I'm fine now."

"What did it feel like?" she asked.

I frowned up at her. What an odd question to ask me.

"What?"

She suddenly flinched back from me and seemed to catch herself doing something she knew she shouldn't have been.

"Lavender did you...?"

"I think it might be a security ward, somebody said something about a mini ward being set up around your desk while you were away and I thought I'd lifted it but I must have left a little residual...spot. Sorry, it won't happen again."

She spoke at rapid speed and I had barely been able to keep up with her. Before I could process all the information and nod my head to show her I'd understood she was already rushing to the door.

"Hey Lavender wait," I called out, she stopped and turned around to face me with a look of fear in her eyes.

"I'm so sorry Ron," she began to whimper.

I got up out of my seat and rushed to her side to try and find out what the two of us had inadvertently done to each other this time.

"I was just gonna say sorry," I mumbled as I lowered my head to make her look up at me, "it's been a weird day back for you hasn't it?"

She smiled at me and wiped her eyes.

"It would've been an awful day back if you weren't here too."

I took a step back and tried not to make it too obvious that I was attempting to put some more space between the two of us.

"Will you let it go, it was just my appendix, no big deal," I smiled and shrugged.

She laughed and brushed my hand with her fingertips.

"I mean I get to see you every day when I'm at work rather than...once in a while otherwise."

"Look," I could see where this was going and couldn't let the two of us be dragged down that road again, "that's probably not a good thing is it? Considering what's happened I think that maybe you should..."

"Don't transfer me Ron, you promised me you wouldn't!" she said as she gripped the front of my shirt and her eyes went scarily wide, "I'm seeing the counsellor on Thursday I swear."

"Lavender I can't let you keep misreading every little kindness I show you as something else, it's driving me nuts," I said as I struggle to extricate myself from her without much success.

"But I'm sick of waiting Ron!" she said as she practically threw me backwards away from her, "I know you end up with me. I know we can be happy together. Why else do you keep coming to me more and more?"

"I'm not coming to you," I frown.

"You'll come around eventually and I can wait for that day Ron, I can wait as long as it takes, but please don't make me wait alone? Let me at least have this, this job with you, and let me see you every day just to get me through. I can hold on if you just wait with me."

"Lavender it's our first day back, our _first day_, are you really gonna just throw yourself back into this again?"

"You won't always be so cold to me you know Ron? You won't always turn away from me. You won't always go to your wife first!"

Wife? I huffed and walked over to the extended leave form I had hoped I wouldn't have to use and snatched it up from my desk.

"I want you to take another week off," I said as I handed it to her without meeting her eyes.

"What?" Lavender said fearfully.

"You heard me. I want you to take another week off and bring me a signed statement from you counsellor that you did see them on Thursday or I'll transfer you to another department right now. Your choice."

She was shaking. I held out the form to her and forced myself to look her hard in the eye.

"You're a much kinder person when you're older!" she snarled as she snatched the form from my hand and stormed out of the office, slamming the door.

I put my face in my hands and turned around to face my desk.

"I...don't...need...this..." I lowered my hands away from my face and kicked at my desk, "..._shit!"_

* * *

_19th June 1999 (Ron is 42 and Hermione is 19)_

RON: I clear my vision and jump when I see Tippy the house elf staring back at me with his massive eyes.

"Would sir like his clothes?" Tippy said while wringing his hands anxiously.

"If you wouldn't mind Tippy, thanks."

I got to my feet as the house elf ran off and saw that I was in Hermione's research lab. Tippy was still here so it must be early on in her career. I saw her inside a soundproof room berating a junior lab technician and reducing her to tears before huffing and patting her roughly on the back by way of comfort. I laughed at this; Hermione must really be stressed at something, as she very rarely makes her colleagues cry.

She looked up at me and looked startled for a moment. I wave and she waves back with a strange smile on her face before opening the door to the sound proof room, a banshee-like scream flooding out of the room behind her, and closed the door behind her to bring us sweet peace once again.

"Did you just arrive?" she said as she pulled out a pair of earplugs.

"Yeah, Tippy's just gone to get my stuff for me," I pointed over my shoulder but Hermione nodded to my feet and there the little house elf was, presenting me my clothing with a deep bow.

I took the bundle and Hermione began a small war about paying him a sickle for his services while I rushed to change before the tears cleared the lab technician's eyes and she saw any of my personals. Tippy disappeared with a pop and Hermione huffed and put the sickle back into her pocket. She looked a little surprised that I had dressed so fast.

"You in a hurry are you?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well I might be," I said, feeling as if I knew what today was already, "you couldn't tell me the date could you babe?"

"It's the nineteenth of June 1999."

Well I was right and what was worse the thing I was about to rush off and do was about to tip Hermione over the edge and proceed to break the heart of my nineteen-year-old self. It couldn't be helped though. I had to do this and I had to do it now.

"Do you need something to eat or drink Ron, you look very pale all of a sudden?" Hermione frowned as she reached out to lay her hand upon my arm with concern.

"No I really have to rush," I said as I trotted to the door before Hermione had even really touched me at all and waved her goodbye, knowing that she was about to follow me but also knowing that I had no time to waste trying to explain this to her, "I've got a thing I have to do. It can't wait. Thanks for the gear love, bye."

I set off running as fast as I could to an apparition point and disapparated over to the photo-me-quick booth on Lavender's street. I jumped out and ran to her front door. I didn't bother to knock, there was no point, and I plunged my hand into the hanging basket for my spare key.

As my fingers found it I unlocked the door and slammed it behind me, running up the stairs to the flat and jumped over Lavender's still form to search for her wand. Eventually I found it and turned back to her and dropped down onto my knees.

"_Eructo!_" I yelled as I pointed the wand at Lavender's face and flicked it sharply.

The spell hit her and the potions began to expel from her mouth in a noxious belch of stomach acid and homemade poison. I rolled her onto her side so she didn't choke and then back onto her back to open her mouth and check her airway was clear. It was but she wasn't breathing.

"_Spiritus lenis!"_ I said as I flicked Lavender's wand at her chest.

Nothing happened.

"_Spiritus lenis!_ Come on you daft bitch you don't do this today!" I yelled as the spell hit her again and she gasped and opened her eyes.

I threw the wand down and exhaled deeply before rolling her over onto her side again and rubbing her back roughly.

"Ron?" she said hoarsely.

"You know it's me," I said wearily.

"I'm so sorry for trying that curse, I'm so sorry that I even thought about it," she began to cough and cry at the same time.

What's this about? This is something I didn't know and that's very rare for me.

"What curse are you talking about Lavender? You haven't hexed me, I'd remember."

She smiled and tried to sit up. I helped her and leaned her against the wall while wiping the vile residue of whatever she had taken from her chin with my sleeve.

"So you never realised that it wasn't a ward then? Oh good, I'm glad about that. I always worried that you knew what I had thought about doing and that was why you hated me so much these days."

I rolled my eyes and really didn't know what she was talking about now. What wasn't a ward?

"I never hated you Lavender I just, couldn't bear you sometimes that's all."

She coughed and chuckled as she hugged me and broke down into her usual tears and pleas for a future she had convinced herself the two of us have with each other. I hugged her back while wondering just when that day in September was going to come for me.

"Shhhh, it's ok." I whispered into her hair.

"I love you," she whimpered into my shoulder.

"Please don't Lavender, I hate the way things turn out for everyone just because you love me."

Her shoulders shook and I patted her back and rocked her from side to side gently.

"I'm so lonely Ron, I don't like my friends and I don't want to use Neville anymore like I used Seamus and now they aren't talking to each other..."

That was the very unstable future I had been talking about. There was nothing I could do to stop that path of destruction. There was no way to force her to love somebody else.

"Did I ever tell you about Bobby the Buck?" I managed to pluck out of thin air to try and distract her from her self-loathing.

She sniffed and nodded.

"When you stopped me the last time."

"Oh right," I don't remember that, that must be in my future.

"Tell me again?"

I smiled and let her rest her head upon my shoulder while I began to recite one of my daughter's favourite bedtime stories to the first girlfriend I had ever had, three feet away from a pool of vomit, and with my wife-to-be standing outside in tears and on the verge of leaving me.

"Well there was this little black buck called Bobby..."

* * *

_22nd June 1999 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 19 and 24)_

RON: I come home from another day of Lavender-induced hell to see Hermione standing in front of me with her arms folded and a suitcase on either side of her.

"Are you going somewhere babe?" I frown.

"No I'm not," she says with false coldness, "you are."

I drop my jacket to the floor as I blink back at her and shake my head, trying to recall if I have forgotten a trip I am supposed to be taking somewhere.

"What?"

Hermione brandishes a piece of paper and begins to look tearful.

"You're cheating on me Ron, with Lavender, and I can't let that happen so I want you to leave now before it starts."

I felt as if I had just been hit on the side of the head by a bludger.

"I'm cheat- No, what?" I stammer as I move forward toward her but she knocks my arm away and stomps past me and into the bedroom.

"I know you don't know you're doing it now but you will do and I'm not going to wait around twenty years for you to break my heart Ron."

"Are you accusing me of..." my head was spinning and I felt as if a dozen exclamations of protest were fighting to escape my lips at exactly the same moment, "...time-travel cheating?"

"I've_ seen _it!" she screamed at me before slamming the door on my face.

I kicked it wide with my foot, shocking myself that I was able to do that, and stepped into the room to see her face down on our bed in floods of tears.

"I don't care what you think you've seen Hermione, I haven't done anything, I wouldn't!"

"But you do!" she screamed even louder and threw a pillow at me.

I caught it and stepped back over to the bed to sit down and try and work out exactly what future version of myself has got me into this mess.

"Stay away from me!" Hermione warned, grabbing her wand and pointing it at me; "If you thought the canaries were bad you just try and push me now Ronald Weasley. Just you try it."

I took a step back and tried not to panic.

"Listen babe," I began.

"Don't you babe me!" she wailed, "You cheat on me. I've seen you with her all month and you even ran out on me to be with her all day. You never left Ron. I waited outside Lavender's place all day."

Hermione's been staking out Lavender's flat? I ran out on her to 'be' with Lavender?

"None of this is me," I said, my words spilling out of me faster than I could say them because of the fear of what Hermione was thinking and the realisation of what she was doing, "I've been going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home and nothing else Hermione. I don't know what you've been seeing but it isn't me I swear to you. I promise, don't I always tell you everything as far as Lavender's concerned?"

"_You_ do but _he_ obviously doesn't!" Hermione said with a distraught look in her red puffy eyes.

"Who the hell is _he?"_ I exclaim.

"He's you! He is the kind of husband you're going to become Ron and I don't want him! I don't want to let you hurt me like that. I know none of this is your fault but it's going to be."

"What?" I yelped as I felt my world turning upside down and grabbed my head with my hands to try to stop it exploding with all the insanity of this argument.

"I want you to leave Ron. Before you cheat on me I want to end this. I want to stop this mess before we waste out lives on a sham marriage."

Hermione began to break down just as I began to crack up.

"But I haven't done anything!" I yelled at her, feeling slightly sick.

"But you will!" she hollered back at me, looking just as mortified as I felt right then.

"I won't, I don't, I've seen it for Merlin's sake! I don't cheat on you. I've never cheated on you and I never will."

"I've seen the future too Ron," Hermione said as she clutched another pillow from the bed close to her desperately, "I've seen it on Lavender Brown's front doorstep and I don't need to wait twenty years or so to relive that pain thank you very much Ron. I want out now."

"No," I said, as plainly as if we were having a disagreement about how much salt to put into a casserole.

"Yes," she said with determination.

"You can't do this," I said as I felt myself beginning to break inside, "you can't punish me for something I haven't done and would never do."

"You _will_ do it Ron, you will do it and there's nothing you can do to change the future isn't that what you always say?"

"This isn't the future this is a misunderstanding I know it, I would never do this to you. Why are you being like this Hermione? You know me."

"I _loved_ you!" she said with a combination of a scream of betrayal and a cry of pain.

"Loved?" I said as the past tense shook me in a way it had never done before.

"Get out," she threw herself back down onto the bed and buried her face into the pillow.

I took a step forward before feeling suddenly dizzy and nauseated.

"No," I whispered as I tried to ride out the seizure while falling against the wall and sliding down it to the floor.

"And there you go," I heard Hermione wailing, "back to Lavender. Give her my love!" she began sobbing again but I couldn't see anything.

"Please..." I begged who knows what as the room, my clothes and my distraught fiancée were ripped away from me and I found myself on my hands and knees on our living room rug in front of the fireplace.

I didn't care if I was alone or if I had just appeared in the middle of a dinner party full of friends and family, I broke down and wept.

"Ron?" it was Hermione's voice, she sounded concerned and her voice was soft and warm unlike the last agonised screeches I had heard from her.

I looked up at her and blinked my watery eyes back into focus. She was sitting up on the sofa, putting a book she had obviously been reading down at her side and dropping to her knees to lift my head with concern for my state of unashamed devastation. I looked into her eyes and managed to strain out a sentence with my raw voice.

"I never cheated on you. I'll never cheat on you. I never will."

Hermione grabbed me tightly and held me against her while I chocked out another few sobs and I heard her comforting voice hushing me as she kissed me on the cheek and kept me close.

"I know Ron, I know. Oh Godric is this where you came after I did that to you?"

I pulled away; she said she knew I was telling the truth, she believed me.

"How could you think that?" I asked her, unable to hide the hurt in my voice.

She stroked my face and wiped away the tears with her soft fingers.

"Look at the state I put you in," she said while her own eyes reddened, "I'm so sorry for hurting you like that. You'll never know how truly sorry I am. I was just confused by what I was seeing and worried about Lavender and what she might try. I never thought you would cheat on me Ron I was just a mess, I wasn't thinking straight and I am really so very sorry Ron. Please forgive me."

She hugged me again and I tried not to shake with the shock of everything that had just happened to me.

"Oh are you cold?" she pulled back from me and began to rub my bare arms briskly, "do you need to eat or drink Ron? Here let me..." I grabbed her just as she was going to rush to the kitchen to get me some water and I curled my arms around her waist and buried my face into her neck, "...Oh you poor thing, what did I do to you?"

"How do I get her to believe me?" I shuddered.

She was stroking my hair and kissing my shoulder while I spoke and I felt her breath on my skin as she answered me.

"You've just got to give her time, she'll see it soon I promise you, she'll come round and you'll be back the way you were before I swear to you. You'll be even better than you were before."

I sniffed and looked up at her.

"What do I do until then?"

She cupped my face in her hand and looked sad despite the smile she was trying to maintain.

"You wait for me. Promise to wait for me to come to my senses Ron and I'll come looking for you. Just you remember that I'll soon know the truth and try not to let me hurt you any more than I have already."

She pulled my head back into her body and looked up to the ceiling.

"Oh please don't hurt any more than this or I'll never be able to forgive myself."

"I'll try," I said as I squeezed her tightly.

I heard her take a deep breath and let it out before kissing the top of my head.

"Just pick up your things and leave her alone for a while. You know me; I can't be argued with when my head's ruling over my heart. Just look after yourself and be patient alright? I will come back to you I promise you. I will know the truth and I will come back to you. I love you so much Ron, I won't be able to stay away I promise."

I suddenly felt my chest tighten as the memory of what my Hermione had said before I left.

"Loved," I wheezed, "you said you _loved _me, as if you didn't anymore."

She lifted my face to meet hers and I hiccupped, she laughed momentarily before becoming serious again.

"During that whole fight before I threw you out only one of us told a lie and that person was me."

She leaned in and kissed me on the lips before resting her forehead against my own.

"I will never stop loving you. I will come and find you. I will know the truth and I will marry you."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and hiccupped again. This time I laughed.

"Most of all Ron," Hermione was saying to me as she fixed my eyes with her own, "I will never ever hurt you like this again. I swear to you on my life okay?"

I nodded and kissed her again.

Hermione reached out for a colourful blanket that looked as if it had been crocheted by my mother and draped it around my shoulders before getting to her feet.

"Right well I'll go and get you a glass of water for those hiccups and I'll see what we've got in the fridge for you to eat alright?"

I nodded and pulled the open weave around me tightly with another hiccup.

Patience. All I had to do was wait. This was going to be hard.


	23. Uncles,Fathers,Brothers and Lunch

**Uncles, Fathers, Brothers and Lunch**

_19th March 2023 (Ron is 43, Hermione is 43)_

RON: Look at her. It's all very well for her to introduce the concept of her dad the horsy to every other kid in the family and then go to sleep in her mother's arms but what about my poor bloody knees I ask you?

As if I haven't done enough damage to my legs now I am crawling on all fours in and out of my mother's kitchen with my nephews and nieces taking it in turns to ride on my back. I may never walk again after this.

I tried to make that joke earlier but mum started crying and Hermione glared at me while Ginny and Harry stared at each other before laughing so deliberately loudly that the twins, Percy and Bill all got the message and joined in. Nobody wants to upset the little ones and there are about a dozen of swarming around the Burrow for Sunday lunch this afternoon. It's mum's enforced tradition.

I saw my favourite nephew, I know you're not supposed to have favourites but...well, let's just say I've known him longest so I know him better. Anyway Cam crawled up to me with Harry and Ginny's oldest boy on his own back and mumbled at me in passing.

"I thought you could use a hand Uncle Ron."

He was a good kid our Cam, he could have been a professional quiddich player but he decided to go into healing instead. He works part time at St Mungo's and part time at Puddlemere United as their match day healer. It makes him happy enough.

"What I could actually do with is a couple of feet if you've got 'em going spare."

Cam laughed and shook his head.

"I dunno, you're always leaving things lying around," he chuckled.

That's another thing I like about Cam, he always knows when to joke and when not to, I've been blamed many a time for Cam's personality and I'm quite proud of that.

Cam crawled underneath the dining table and accidentally knocked his cousin out in doing so.

"I forgot he was on my back!" he had protested when Ginny had screeched at him that he'd done it on purpose before turning to scowl at me, "I blame you for that, you distracted me."

I laughed so hard that George's little girl Mia climbed off me in a huff because 'horsy was shaking too much'. I saw a fight was about to break out for the next ride and rolled over onto my back.

"No more I'm afraid, horsy had to be taken to the knackers yard and be turned into glue," I groaned.

I felt a foot kicking me and looked up to see Hermione, our sleeping daughter fidgeting in her arms, looking down at me with an amused glare.

"You know they don't like it when you tell them what animals get minced up to make other things now stop it!"

"What?" I protested while Fred's two boys tried to roll me over by force, "Charlie told me all that stuff when I was their age and I'm not scarred for life."

Harry almost choked on his drink and lifted the tablecloth to look underneath at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Ok let me re-phrase that," I began.

"Please don't," Fred said as he lifted a devil child under each arm and carried them over to their mother, "mum's coming back in and if you set her off again we'll never eat."

"I'll save you," Charlie said as he grabbed my arm and pulled me up to sit beside him at the table, "I'm beginning to remember why Krista and I decided against kids now."

I shook my head and rubbed my aching back.

"You always were the wisest of us all," I muttered.

"Shut up!" he laughed as he gave me a firm brotherly shove that almost put me back on the floor again.

HERMIONE: I have to say that if it weren't for Molly's sporadic hysterics this would be the first normal Sunday at the Burrow in weeks, months even. Well as normal as this family will ever get.

I watch Ginny and Harry as they comfort their son about the bump on his head and Harry shows him his scar and tells him that scars and bruises are marks of bravery and battle.

"So you can go to nursery tomorrow and tell all the other kids about you and your valiant steed doing battle with the dining table."

James laughed at this and slid down from his mother's lap to go and play outside with his cousins and twin brother and sister. I smiled as I saw how much better suited Harry and Ginny were as an unmarried couple then they ever were as husband and wife. That divorce was the best thing that ever happened to them. Ginny Weasley was too much a force to be reckoned with in her own right to just be considered Mrs Harry Potter for the rest of her life and she simply adored it when Harry would introduce her in public as 'my flighty young mistress'.

Ron and Charlie were having an in-depth discussion about something, it seemed to involve a lot of teasing at first but now they were just talking and nodding furiously at each other. I absent-mindedly kissed our little girl on the head as I watched her father say something to make Charlie laugh that enormous booming laugh of his.

James soon came running back inside with Ally, Sean and Sirius and hurled himself at Harry demanding he tell them all about battle scars.

Ron and Charlie stopped talking and listened to Harry groaning and trying to explain that talking about scars at the dinner table was very rude while Bill called across to the gore-obsessed little ones.

"Well when my face got shredded there were chunks of it hanging off, dogs were chasing me and licking their lips, and at first they tried to stick it back together with spellotape but the blood kept taking away all the sticky gum on the back of it so I had to carry my face in a bucket to the nearest healer..."

The kids 'ughed' and 'aghed' throughout this graphic monologue while beaming with delight at the same time. Ginny was throwing napkins at her oldest brother to get him to shut up while Fleur picked them up and proceeded to jam them into her husband's mouth to muffle him.

"Thank you Fleur," Ginny said in her most proper voice.

"Thank _you _Ginny," Fleur said back to her, her accent almost perfect now after all these years.

"So Uncle Charlie," James turned to look up at his hero, "Tell us how you got all yours again."

Charlie rolled his eyes and looked at Ron with a shake of the head. Ron snorted and folded his arms as he sat back in the chair.

"Yeah Uncle Charlie, tell us about that big one on your arse!"

"Ron!" his mother snapped from the doorway, "There are children present."

Ron turned to a giggling Sirius and James and pretended to be grumpy.

"You've got me into trouble now!"

"Alright, listen," Charlie said as he raised his hands to get the attention of the growing number of Weasley offspring that were gathering around the table, "seeing as you've all heard these stories way too much for you still to be interested in them you morbid freaks..."

"Charlie, don't call your nephews and nieces freaks," Molly hissed as she fussed over the gravy.

"I will point at a scar and you tell me where it came from alright?" Charlie continued.

All the little ones were nodding enthusiastically; Fred and George seemed to want to play this game as well and leaned forward with wicked grins on their faces.

"Point at your arse, point at your arse, point at your arse," Ron chanted under his breath into Charlie's ear.

"Shut up Dobbin!" Charlie scowled before pointing at the crook of his left elbow.

There was a scar that looked like a smile when his elbow was bent but a chisel when straightened.

"A Himalayan tri-horned mountain dragon!" Ally said with his hand raised in a fashion that reminded me of myself.

Ron seemed to have noted this as well as he turned to glance at me with a grin.

"Correct, ten points to Percy's little genius!"

Ally beamed and Percy mimed applause.

"Now, how about this one?" Charlie said as he lifted his shirt to point at three dots, each an inch apart, and three more just above them in the same triangular pattern.

Sirius hoisted his hand into the air with such eagerness he almost knocked out his twin sister.

"Watch it there!" Harry said as he pulled Lilly out of striking range and over to his side.

"Yes, the scruffy kid with the glasses," Charlie said as he pointed at Sirius who giggled before answering.

"They're claw marks from when a Magenta Lizard-hawk fell in love with you and tried to pick you up and fly away with you."

Everybody laughed at this.

"She didn't fall in love with him, she wanted to eat him!" George shouted across incredulously.

"She loved me and wanted my babies!" Charlie shouted back.

"Charlie you're sounding worryingly like Hagrid these days," Percy said with a shake of the head.

I laughed and felt the warm sleeping figure in my lap stirring with all the noise. I knew I'd have to wake her up when lunch was served anyway so I didn't worry about it.

"Now what's this one?" Charlie said as he pointed at his neck where a deep burgundy mark was raised from the surface of the skin.

Fred's eyes lit up and he whispered into his son's ear.

"That's the love bite Audrey Watkins gave you in the fourth year!" the little voice shouted out cheerily.

Fred and George howled with laughter and Harry and Ginny turned away from Charlie to stifle their own laughs. Ron tugged at Charlie's arm and smirked.

"Is she responsible for what you've got on your arse as well?"

Charlie narrowed his eyes at Ron and pointed his finger into Ron's chest to put his little brother rightly in his place.

"You aren't too old to go over my knee young man."

"Is that what she said to ya?" Ron chortled.

Molly huffed at this raucous behaviour at her table and was about to spin around to shame the family into silence when Cam called out over the laughter.

"Falling out of the sky and getting hit by the Hogwarts express in 2011."

The room fell silent and everybody turned to stare at Cam who was holding his own little boy on his lap. Ron stared at him and blinked.

"Alex asked me what scar Uncle Charlie was pointing at now," Cam explained with a small shrug and a smile.

Ron looked down at his chest and saw that his brother was indeed pointing at the ugly slash that went from his armpit all the way across and to his collarbone on the other side. Molly didn't seem to know what to do. She didn't want to make little Alex feel bad, the poor boy didn't know that Uncle Ron's scars were off limits in an unspoken way, but Cameron definitely knew better. I thought I understood why he had done what he did though. I looked at Ron and saw him smiling back at his nephew.

"Ten points," he said and Alex threw his arms up in celebration while Cam smiled at his favourite uncle and winked.

Arthur put down the newspaper he had been hiding behind all this time and cleared his throat.

"What about those?" he said as he pointed to Ron's arms.

Ron turned to his father and laughed out loud before rolling up his sleeves and displaying his scarred arms to the awe struck crowd of red haired children before the two blondes sitting in the corner piped up again; Cam having whispered into Alex's ear.

"Brains at the Department of Minsteries..." Alex yelled enthusiastically.

"Mysteries," Cam corrected.

"Mysteries. When Uncle Ron was sixteen and still at school."

All the children looked back at Ron and gave an 'Oooh'. Percy laughed at this and shook his head.

"Look what you've started now," he said ruefully, "they're all going to go to Hogwarts looking for adventure rather than an education."

"Tsk," Ron scoffed, "who needs an education?"

Percy looked alarmed and covered Ally's ears.

"Don't listen to him, it's all lies I tell you, LIES!" he shouted to a chuckling Bobby at the kitchen door.

Ron and Charlie were laughing at this when Ron suddenly flinched and lifted the tablecloth to look down at his little nephew Sean as he rolled up Ron's trouser leg and stared at the space where a foot should have been.

"I'll thank you to ask before examining a person's stumps young man," he said with a blink.

Fred went pale and flung himself under the table to drag his son out from underneath it.

"Sean what are you doing?" he snapped.

The whole kitchen was dumbfounded. I wanted to put my hand on Ron's shoulder but I didn't want to let the lead weight of our daughter's sleeping form slide off of me and hit the floor. Ron's eyes scanned across all the alarmed pairs of eyes that stared back at him in shock.

"Right," Ron said quietly before pushing himself back from the table, his chair scraping on the floor so loudly that the sleeping angel on my lap jerked awake and sat up to look at her daddy as he swung his legs up to rest upon the dining room table and rolled up both trouser legs to reveal the two stumps at each ankle.

Fleur drew a sharp intake of breath and covered her mouth. Fred held his inquisitive son to him in shock and Charlie couldn't help but stare at the space where Ron's feet should have been. All the children were unabashed as they leaned in close to examine the strange sight before Sirius turned to Cam and Alex expectantly.

Alex looked up at his father to get the answer but Cam just stared back at his uncle and shrugged.

"Uncle Ron never told me how he got those ones I'm afraid."

All the faces in the room turned back to Ron who smiled very slightly before saying clearly and calmly.

"Aimez, why don't you tell everybody what happened to daddy's feet?"

I looked down at my daughter as she grinned and sat up straight.

"Once upon a time there was this little black buck called Bobby," I saw Molly grip Arthur's shoulder and dab at her eyes with a tea towel while Harry took Ginny's hand and Fred lifted Sean up into his arms and stepped closer to the legs as they lay across the table. Percy's face went pale and he looked back at his eldest son.

Ron had never talked about what happened. We all knew pretty much what had happened to him but he had still kept it to himself. I had no idea that he had explained it to Aimez. Well he hadn't obviously, there was no little black buck called Bobby, but he had given her a reason for daddy not being able to play with her they way he used to.

"Bobby was a very good-hearted buck but he was very mischievous too. One day while Bobby was playing in his garden in the mountains a man appeared out of nowhere. He had no clothes on and didn't know where he was or what time it was."

Ron smiled at Aimez as she paused to look up at him to make sure she was telling her story right. He gave her a nod and she beamed and continued to her captivated audience.

"Well Bobby was used to living in the mountains all alone so he was a little bit frightened to see a naked man climbing around on the rocks and snow in his garden so Bobby lowered his horns and ran at the man. The man was barefoot and couldn't move out of the way fast enough because of the pointy rocks of the mountain jabbing into his feet and when Bobby reached him he sliced off daddy's...I mean the man's foot with his sharp horns in one go. _Chop!"_

Aimez said as she made a chopping motion with her hand at Ron's left leg. Ron lifted his left leg and wriggled the stump in James' direction. The little red head flinched before giggling and putting his hand on Ron's ankle and peering closer.

"I can see where the horns cut him, look!" he gasped.

Aimez looked to Ron for direction.

"Very sorry," Ron whispered.

"Bobby was very sorry for what he had done when he saw the man's foot rolling down the mountain and being eaten by wild carnivorous badgers."

Harry snorted and fought not to laugh out loud. Ginny stared at him wondering why this horrible story was so amusing.

"Why is it always badgers with you?" Harry said as he wiped his eyes.

Ron shrugged.

"There's no such thing as a wild carnivorous ba-" Charlie began to lean in and mumble into Ron's ear.

"Shut up, she picked the animal," Ron nodded to Aimez.

"Oh right, yeah wild carnivorous badgers Aim, I've seen plenty of them in my time," Charlie nodded sincerely, "Vicious buggers they are."

Aimez giggled and looked back to her father who prompted her again.

"Wonky?"

"Oh yeah," she said, a look of delight on her face as she clapped her hands together and continued with the story, "So Bobby the buck was so sorry and told the man that he would do anything to make it up to him," Aimez put on a bleating voice that made Arthur and Molly chuckle, "Let me know what I can do and I will do it 'O naked footless mountain man!"

Ron's shoulders began to shake as he struggled not to join Harry in the lost battle of suppressed laughter. Aimez looked at him with a frown but Ron could only manage to wave his hand at her and squeak.

"Go on!"

"So the man thought about his life with only one foot and decided that hopping would cause him to spill his tea everywhere," I broke at the same moment Bill did and we both clutched out hands to our mouths while Aimez went on, "So he told the naughty black buck Bobby what he could do for him to make amends."

"Good use of the word amends," Percy mumbled to himself.

"Shut up Percy!" George snapped as his own laughter broke.

"So the man said, 'Can you please chop off my other foot so I'm not so wonky?' and Bobby agreed. Just after the mountain man had his other foot chopped off and fed to the ravenous badgers he disappeared just the same way he had come and Bobby the black buck had learned a very valuable lesson."

There wasn't a single member of the family, apart front the enraptured children of course, who wasn't crying with laughter by now, and Charlie managed to look Aimez in the eye and asked her exactly what lesson that was.

"It's better to be foot loose and fancy free then lopsided and spill you tea!" she declared with pride.

I couldn't help myself any longer. I threw my head back and laughed harder and longer than I ever had done since that day when my mountain man had come back to me with irreversible frostbite in both feet and I had to grant the healers permission to amputate them while Ron was unconscious. While Ron took Aimez onto his lap and praised her story-telling abilities his nephews and nieces crowded around his stumps and talked animatedly about the story of the mountain man and Bobby the black buck while touching the oddly creased skin beneath his ankles.

Ron had never let anybody get that close to them before, let alone touch them, and I rested my hand on the back of his chair and tugged at a lock of his hair with my thumb and forefinger to get his attention. He looked at me briefly, winked and turned back to heap more praise on his daughter who looked utterly delighted to have done her daddy's story justice.

This must have been the bedtime story she insisted he tell her every night, even when it had been a travelling version of himself who didn't know the truth behind the story he was made to memorise.

I could see that Molly was ready to start serving lunch now and as she turned with a huge roast chicken in her oven gloved hands she called across to Ron, whose legs were still draped across the table on show, to move them aside.

"Right Ron, feet off the table dinner's up..." she froze and realised what she'd just said.

Every one of us stared back at her with wide eyes before bursting into laughter as one and her sons started ribbing their mother mercilessly for her slip-up while she blushed and mumbled that it was just a figure of speech.

"No mum," George corrected as he put a reassuring arm around her shoulders, "a figure of speech is something like, 'hungry badgers ate my feet!' that kind of thing."

Molly elbowed George in the ribs playfully before chuckling and Ron turned back to me and kissed me on the cheek.

"That's a beautiful story Ron," I whispered to him before kissing him on the lips while Aimez made a disapproving sound at the back of her throat.

"Beautiful?" he frowned at me.

"Beautiful for Aimez yes," I smiled as I took her from his lap while Charlie held him steady so he could lower his legs back underneath the table again.

I wondered how I could feel so lucky when you considered what the two of us had been through over all these years but I was. I was the luckiest woman on the planet.

"See mummy?" Aimez smiled as she looked up at me.

"What's that angel?" I asked her.

"I told you daddy was going to be okay. I made him promise when I found his wand."


	24. My Substitute For Love

**My Substitute For Love**

_25th June 1999 (Ron is 19 and 34, Hermione is 19)_

HERMIONE: I have gathered up the last of Ron's things from the bathroom and put them into a plastic bag. I don't know where to send them but I've got a pretty good idea where to go first.

"Hermione, what are you doing here at this time in the morning?" Ginny beamed as she opened the front door to the flat she shared with Harry.

I didn't know if the family knew that Ron and I had broken up yet, surely Ginny wouldn't be looking so carefree if she did, and if Ginny didn't know then Ron had obviously not been staying with them.

"Um I was looking for Ron actually," I smiled as I tried to hide the bag behind my back, "he's not here then?"

Ginny frowned at me.

"Why would he be? Surely he's at work isn't he?"

I refused to go to the ministry to see him. I couldn't face Lavender. I wouldn't have been able to stomach seeing the smug look on her face if she knew that she had won this long fought war after all.

"Oh is he travelling?" Ginny asked after my hesitation.

"Yes," I lied, "he is and I was just trying to track him down that's all. It's okay Ginny, I'll try the twins place."

Ginny had looked a little stunned at my sudden departure and I had apparated to Diagon Alley and found myself practically running to the twins shop. I forced myself to stop. I couldn't understand why I had needed to know where Ron had been staying ever since he reappeared from his seizure after our row and simply dressed and picked up his bags without a word to me other than, 'I can wait'.

I had owled him to tell him to collect his remaining belongings while I was out but the owl returned with the letter unopened. I had casually asked Neville when I saw him if he and Ron were on good terms since the warning he had received from the older version of Ron and Neville had informed me that he hadn't seen anything of Ron since that day. So he wasn't sleeping on Neville and Seamus' sofa.

"Hermione my dear future Weasley to what do we owe this honour?"

Well that settled that, I thought as I let Fred pull me into a warm hug while George nodded at me and continued to serve a customer at the counter, if he still thought I was a future Weasley then he couldn't have spoken to Ron recently.

"I was just looking for that younger brother of yours," I forced myself to grin, "he hasn't been by has he?"

Fred shook his head and called over his shoulder to George, who had finished with his transaction and crossed the shop floor to join us.

"You haven't seen Ronniekins recently have you George?"

"Not since he came by early last week with a broken nose and a shiner, he was about twenty six, twenty seven I think. Why has he gone A.W.O.L.?"

I began to walk backwards out of the shop with a carefree shrug.

"Not to worry, it's only something he forgot to take with him, I'll track him down. See you both soon."

Again I had abruptly left a bewildered Weasley, or in this case two of them, wondering why I was acting so oddly and tried to think of the next place he might be.

Charlie was in Eastern Europe at a conservation facility, Bill and Fleur were preparing for the birth of their first child, and Percy was..._Percy, of course_. He would have gone to stay with Percy, he was discreet and none of the family was talking to him, which would explain why none of them had heard about our spilt yet.

Before I knew what I was doing I was knocking on Percy's front door.

"Yes dear, can I help you at all?" the elderly doorman asked as he opened the front door to let me into the foyer.

"Hello I was just looking for Mr Weasley," I smiled as I scanned to wall of post owls for Pig.

"Oh Mr Weasley is at work at the ministry my dear."

"Oh I know but I was wondering if Percy's, I mean Mr Weasley's guest was..."

"Mr Weasley's guest?" the doorman frowned.

"Yes I believe his younger brother is staying with him temporarily? I have some things he wanted passed on and I was wondering if I could leave them with you."

"I'm afraid there's been some kind of mix-up young lady," the doorman said kindly, "Mr Percy Weasley doesn't have anybody staying with him at the moment. He does have quite a lot of brothers, maybe you're mistaken and the person you are looking for is with one of them?"

"Yes, I'm sorry you're probably right. Sorry to have troubled you sir."

I stepped down from the porch and tried to think. I couldn't believe that Ron would have gone home to his mother. I would have heard from her the second he arrived. She'd either be bemoaning my treatment and letting me cry on her shoulder or slapping me around the face for breaking her baby boy's heart. I suspected the latter was the more likely of the two. It was my only option left though so I apparated to the Burrow as soon as I found a secluded spot to do so unnoticed.

"Hermione I thought I heard a crack outside," Mrs Weasley said, she looked happy to see me and very relaxed.

Ron couldn't be here either. I don't know why I did it but I burst into tears.

"Oh my dear what on earth is wrong? Have you and Ron had some kind of falling-out? Is he travelling? Is he hurt?" she was getting herself panicky now so I had to stop her.

"No Mrs Weasley, well I don't know he may be, I don't know where he is and I don't care."

I broke down into her shoulder and she rubbed my back soothingly while I yelled into her woollen cardigan.

"But I do care and I don't want to anymore!"

RON: I had been sleeping in my office since I returned from the future and decided to heed Hermione's advice and just keep my head down and wait for her to realise the truth. I think Lavender knows. She's been bringing me food 'as a snack' with my last cup of tea of the day before she finishes work and leaves. I'd thank her or maybe even talk to her about it if I didn't think that she would read it the wrong way.

"Ron?"

I looked up from the deep grazes in my left arm and saw Bill frowning at me, causing the scars on his face to crumple into wavy lines.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him as I lowered my wand from the injuries I had sustained during my latest trip.

"I was just...hold on, first things first, are you alright there?"

I smiled and nodded, extending my bloodied arm to him so he could lean over and get a good look at it.

"It's fine, just grazes see? I appeared just as the wall outside the Leaky Caldron was closing and got myself caught in it a bit."

Bill winced.

"Ooh nasty."

I shrugged.

"I've had worse."

Bill sat down in the seat across from me as I finished healing the last of the scrapes.

"That's becoming your catchphrase."

I put my wand down and looked across at Bill expectantly.

"So what's up? Fleur and the baby ok?"

"Yeah fine," Bill said as he leaned forward over the desk to stare hard into me, "what about you and Hermione Ron? All ok with you?"

I wondered what he knew and didn't answer him. He huffed and sat back in his chair, folding his arms and shaking his head.

"I knew it," he sighed, "I've had owls from Ginny and the twins about Hermione showing up and acting weird before running out on them before they even knew what she was there for."

"Yeah?" I said, genuinely intrigued about this too.

"So you haven't a clue what that's about then no?" Bill probed, entirely unconvinced.

I looked away from him and drummed my fingers on my desk before glancing back at him again.

"Well I don't know what she's up to doing the rounds of the family no. What _did_ she say to them all?"

"Nothing really, just that you'd forgotten something and she needed to give it to you. Doesn't seem to know where to find you which is odd seeing as I came right here and there you were."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Of course Hermione wasn't going to come here and face Lavender. I didn't respond to Bill's statement.

"Ron what's going on? Have you two fallen out again?"

I swished my wand at the open office door and locked it before performing a silencing charm.

"Blimey this must be something big," Bill said warily.

"I just can't let her hear this that's all," I said as I nodded to the now closed door that shut Lavender out from eavesdropping into my conversation.

"Oh Ron you haven't?" Bill said, about to give me a hard time for hurting Hermione just to have a bit of fun with an old flame.

"No I haven't," I said firmly and with a little resentment that it was such an easy thing for people to believe of me, "but what I have or haven't done in the past isn't the issue. I'm being falsely accused of something I can't prove I didn't do until twenty odd years time."

Bill blinked at me and I started at the beginning.

HERMIONE: I couldn't work out whether Mrs Weasley was wiping her eyes because I had been so cruel and unfair to Ron or because Ron was going to grow to become cruel and unfair to me.

"Oh Hermione dear, I understand that it must have been upsetting for you to have seen everything that you did but I have to say I'm amazed that when you confronted Ron about it and he told you there was nothing going on between him and this Lavender woman that you would call him a liar."

"But that's the thing Mrs Weasley," I tried to explain myself again, "I know he wasn't lying. I know he hasn't done anything, I heard him turning her down in his office myself but that's not the point. He'll come back to her in the future and he'll cheat on me then. I've seen him doing it, I know he's going to do it."

"But Ron sees the future too," Mrs Weasley said sadly, "and he sees the whole picture Hermione, not just a distant unheard conversation on a doorstep, he knows what he did and didn't do."

I felt my own eyes watering and wiped them before the tears could fall.

"I can't risk it. I can't risk my heart on this. It's already done now, we've broken up and he's moved out so could I just leave his shaving things and toothbrush here with you. You can give them to him when you see him next."

I slid the bag across the table to her but she just looked down at it sadly and shook her head.

"He didn't come home to me Hermione. He didn't go to his brother's or Ginny either so you say, nor his friends either, and I don't know when or if I'll see him to pass these on to him."

I felt sick. This was all Ron's fault but not at all Ron's fault at the same time. In order to save my own heart I had shattered his instead. I got up from my chair, leaving the bag on the table.

"I'm so sorry I lost him, I really thought he would go straight to one of you, and I hope you find him soon but I can't...I can't that's all."

I ran out of the Burrow and knew that Mrs Weasley was about to check the clock to see that Ron was at work, I had done the same thing when I had passed it by earlier on, and get straight on the floo to make sure that her son was eating properly and demand he come home to the Burrow as soon as the working day was over.

I felt glad that there would be somebody to look after him.

RON: Bill carried one of my cases and I heaved the other inside his house.

"Listen are you sure about this Bill? I mean you and Fleur don't need a lodger right now and..." I was interrupted by a stern look from my oldest brother.

"You are not sleeping in that bloody office one more night. I can't believe you didn't come to me right away. What have I always told all of you?"

I rolled my eyes and kicked my case against the wall so Fleur wouldn't trip over it.

"Bill is God, we defer to Bill at all times and if anybody messes with us they will meet Bill's bloody wrath."

He chuckled at this.

"I forgot about that, there's nothing like a blood oath to put little brothers in their place is there?"

I tried to smile at this. I didn't feel much like smiling but I knew he hated it when either the twins or myself were sullen. He said it wasn't natural.

"No I meant the other thing I always told all of you. You will never be too old to come to me for help with anything at all. I will never see any of you homeless or hungry or broke okay? Not ever."

"I'm not homeless Bill," I sighed, "I have a perfectly nice home thank you very much, I'm just not welcome there right now that's all."

Bill clapped a hand on my back and led me through to the kitchen.

"Patience mate, like she told you, it'll all work out fine don't worry."

HERMIONE: I resolved to have an early night. Owls had been coming and coming and I couldn't read another testimony to Ron's honesty and declaration that I couldn't _know_ anything for sure about the future. Mrs Weasley had obviously spread the news of our separation and the verdict was in, Hermione is the bad guy in the scenario.

I would have expected nothing less. The Ron they knew hadn't done anything wrong.

I still didn't know where he was or whom he was with. I didn't know if Lavender knew and what she now intended to do about it if she did. I didn't know how to go about the rest of my life without Ronald Weasley in it.

"Oh crap!" I heard his voice groaning from the floor at the side of the bed.

"Are you hurt?" I asked instinctively as I leaned over to check his naked and well defined older body for signs of injury.

"No I'm just tired," he mumbled as he clambered up onto the bed and wriggled beneath the bedclothes, "where am I?"

"It's 1999" I said as I shifted uncomfortably away from his naked body as it spread out across the entire bed in that typical way of his.

"No I meant where am I? The other me, I'm in his spot."

I smiled briefly before thinking fast.

"He's on an assignment, something to do with recruitment you told me but we both know that's just a cover don't we?"

That's it; remind myself that Ron is capable of lying to me when he needs to.

"Mmm, sorry about that, I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill myself. I'd have to kill somebody, I didn't pay that much attention to the training that day," he murmured into the pillow while draping his arm over me and pulling me towards him.

I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't use this future Ron to get me through another night without him by my side. This was immoral. This was wrong. This was almost as bad as the abuse of the time travel I had accused him of. I had to tell him that he was to sleep on the sofa.

"When in 1999?" Ron suddenly said through a yawn.

I swallowed.

"April."

Ron smiled and snuggled in closer to me, resting his head on my lap where I was sitting up, and I realised that he had been checking the time of year so he could know if he belonged at my side or not. I smiled sadly because I had lied to him about it being April so he would think he did belong here.

For the time being, just for tonight, and without anybody around to tell him any different he belonged with me again.


	25. Nightswimming

**Night swimming**

_16th January 2016 (Ron is 35 and Hermione is 36)_

RON: I've got the bastard cornered at last. It's been years but I've finally got him. I aim my wand at the breathless snarling wizard who has been leaking Auror secrets from inside the institution and risking the lives of Harry, Boyer, Cavendish, Davis and Eldridge by betraying their movements and feeding them false information. I feel elated and devastated at finally discovering who the Auror mole is.

"You are under arrest, anything you say and do now or have said and done in my presence in the past will be submitted to the wizengamott via pensive as evidence. Put down your wand and lay face down on the ground."

He looks at me and raises his wand from my chest to my face and sneers.

"Agent Weasley, how far we've both come since the good old days eh? Be a good boy and back away from the portkey."

I hate him. I hate his smug face. I hate his self-righteousness and I hate that he knows me so well. He knew me then and he knows me now. He knows what I can do. I used to go drinking with the slimy sod after work back when...well back when I was drinking every day after work and he didn't hate me. Back when she wasn't messing with his head. Before that day in September 1999 that I'm told is all my fault but I've still not been there yet.

"Justice for a crime you think I'm going to commit is that it?" I venture, taking a step toward the portkey, hoping to stand in front of it so he can't make his escape.

He snorts at my comment.

"It's done Weasley. You and I both know that once it's been done and experienced there's no changing it. As long as this is the present and she died with you, _because_ of you, there's no changing it."

"Seamus I..."

"You were there you know you were!" my old room mate roared, "You let her die. You just lay there on the floor and did nothing, the portrait in the hall told me everything. You'll show up at her house and watch her die and do nothing you cold bastard. _Nothing!"_

"Come on Seamus, think about this, you know what I'm like when I travel don't you? You've seen it. I'm sometimes worse for wear. Sometimes I _can't_ get up."

"You could talk though couldn't you?" he seethed, "The portrait said you talked about how she was going to die. She asked you and you told her and then...then..."

My whole time-travelling life seemed to have been dogged by the actions of my future self being taken out on me in the present. I had almost lost Hermione because of it. I had almost lost my job because of it. Now I find out that this whole internal war within the ministry was all about my future self not being able to save Lavender Brown's life back in 1999. I'm a time epileptic not a miracle worker. I had had enough of apologising for things I was yet to do, especially when my accusers had never been there to see my supposed sins first hand.

"I haven't done it yet for Merlin's sake," I hollered and took a step to stand before the portkey, "and I wouldn't let it happen any more than I could stop it happening."

"You'd save your wife!" sparks flew from the tip of Seamus' wand and flickered brightly.

"She wasn't your wife," I said as I tried to remain calm without sounding callous at the same time.

"I hate you Weasley."

I looked into Seamus' eyes and saw that he really meant it.

"I know."

"I'd kill you now but we both know your number's not up just yet is it? About another ten years isn't it?" his face twisted into a smug look of victory.

"Less than that," I said without emotion, "in theory."

The 'in theory' was Hermione talking, she wouldn't hear of my time travel and life expectancy being linked. It stops at forty-three because she finds a cure and nothing else.

"I theory, there's no theory about it, you can't change death isn't that what you said? The simple fact that none of us see a middle aged version of you turning up naked in our bloody living rooms means one thing and one thing only."

"Well we'll have to wait and see won't we?"

His eyes narrowed with a fresh build up of spite.

"It's just a shame I can't be the one that does it, _that_ would be justice."

I felt dizzy. No this couldn't be happening, not right now.

"That would be sad. You're a spy and a troublemaker Seamus you're not a murderer yet," I felt bile rising in my throat and tried to calm myself down.

I took a deep breath in, then out, all the while holding my position and my aim as firm as ever. He could tell though. I could see it in his eyes, they used to light up like that when he went into Honeydukes as a kid and then later when he got a smile from his great unrequited love.

"You're going aren't you Weasley?"

"Not until I take you down I'm not."

I had tried to sound confident but I was struggling to hold myself in the present. The head rush was worse now and I felt as if I was upside down in thick fog.

"That's a hell of a weakness for someone in your line of work y'know Ron?" he smirked before sending rapid white flickers from the tip of his wand.

Shit, he was jump-starting the seizure.

"_Petrificus..."_ I fell and landed with a splash into freezing water.

My wand was no longer in my hand and I was starkers. It was pitch black and I sputtered and choked on the water that had already forced its way down my windpipe while frantically treading water. I tried to stop myself from shivering while I looked around and then up into the night sky.

Damn, no moon, no light at all. I didn't even know which way to swim to make the shore...or bank...or whatever.

I shook my head, unable to believe I had let myself become sidetracked with stupid thoughts about the correct word to use at a time like this, no wonder Hermione was always so infuriated at me during times of peril. My eyes became accustomed to the darkness and I could see a light through what I realised now was fog. That was why I couldn't see any moon or stars or light of any kind. But I could see one very tiny light. I swam for it and tried to ignore what felt like a tentacle brushing against my leg.

I swam front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke; even the doggy paddle and I still didn't seem any closer. Was I even moving at all? I stopped and floated on my back for a moment, thankful once more for the gift of natural buoyancy, and tried to feel whether or not there was a current I had been fighting against. Nope, didn't seem so, the water was as still as glass. I kept floating for a little while longer. My arms and legs felt like dead weights and my energy level was non-existent. I hadn't eaten all day and was now incredibly dehydrated from the seizure. I took a chance and gulped down some of the icy water. It tasted pretty fresh. Maybe I could drink my way out of this mess.

After satisfying my incredible thirst I took several deep breaths to convince myself I could make it and set off again. I kicked my legs and just glided for a while, sparing my arms a little longer, before dunking under the surface and emerging to realise I had actually fallen asleep while floating on my back.

How long was this going to go on for? When would I get back? How long would I have been gone? Would Seamus still be there?

I coughed and struggled to clear my airway of water before focusing on the light with determination as I began to front crawl with the same regimented rhythm I slip into when on one of my runs.

Nearly there, barely there, almost upon it, _there!_

I grabbed the metallic thing ahead of me and a bell rang out. I looked up at the light and made the same sound I used to make as a kid when throwing a tantrum at not getting my own way. The frustrated, whiny, whimpering scream evolved into an out and out roar directed at the sky. I shook the buoy as I bellowed my enraged mantra.

"I hate this, I hate this, I hate this! Why me? What's so fucking special about me eh?"

Nobody gave me an answer. I clung on to the buoy for dear life and cursed myself internally. I had wasted all that time swimming further out. Now I was exhausted. I was so cold and tired and hungry that I had to use everything I had left in me not to fall asleep.

I really wanted to fall asleep.

I jerked and the bell clanged above my head as the feeling that something had just curled around my leg woke me from my micro-sleep. I couldn't stop myself from shivering and I tried to think of the names of the Chudley Cannons team from 2010 when I went with Harry to see them play as an early thirtieth birthday present. I went for the keeper first, stick to what you know best after all.

"G-G-G-Gothard," I stammered through my chattering teeth.

I never realised that actually happened for real at times like this.

"Janney and B-Broom were the b-b-beaters."

Ok so that left the chasers and the seeker. The seeker was now infamous for being accused of match fixing and fleeing the country in sporting disgrace.

"B-Bastard Rogers, Naylor and C-C-Cobb," I felt my eyes closing and I felt the buoy beginning to leave my grasp and waited for the inevitable.

I waited for the water to block both my airways and pull me under. I still had my breath though and a solid surface was now beneath me. My eyes were still closed but I could feel that there was a lot of light now. I couldn't stop the shivering or the need to sleep as the sound of Eldridge's voice calling with urgency to Harry and Davis didn't give me any motivation to stay awake at all.

"Ron! Ron can you hear me?" the head of the Aurors was shouting somewhere over me, "Agent Weasley, say something to let me know you're still with us."

I felt a warm blanket falling over me while a hand resting on my back.

"Not again Ron please, come on mate, say something," it was Harry's voice; he sounded even more tired than I did.

Then it came to me. I drew a shuddering breath and whispered.

"McAteer."

Then the sound and the cold and the light all faded away into comforting nothingness.

HERMIONE: I raced along the silent halls of St Mungo's, my heels making enough sound to wake the dead as my heavy steps pushed me onward. Harry had apparated through our wards and right into the flat to tell me the news.

"It looks like near drowning again Hermione," he had panted, "that and hypothermia."

I had flooed straight to St Mungo's that very second without a word, leaving Harry behind. He hadn't been chasing me as I ran the halls of the wizarding hospital so I assumed he was telling the family what had happened.

What had happened?

I flung the doors to the room that the flustered woman at reception had told me to go to while attempting to match my pace down the corridor before I lost her and was faced with my husband, laying in bed unconscious, surrounded by a slow warming charm. I choked back an audible cry and ran to him, planting kisses all over his face and the back of the hand I now held on to as if both our lives now deepened on it.

"Mrs Weasley?" the mediwizard said tentatively from behind me.

I didn't look away from Ron.

"Where's his healer?" I said with a voice as rough as sandpaper.

"Healer Wanless is on his way but don't worry we've already managed to..."

"Just tell me he's going to be ok. That's all I want to hear right now." I said firmly.

A hand slid over my shoulder and gripped hard. It was Eldridge.

"He's going to be fine."

That was it. That was enough for now. I let myself relax.

"Thank you."

_FOUR HOURS LATER_

"I can't believe it," Neville had said while his head dropped into his hands, "I mean I knew he was a mess but I hadn't heard anything from him in years. I didn't even know he still worked in the building, I never saw him."

"Well he doesn't work there anymore," Percy said as his new wife Pippa rested her head upon his shoulder sadly, "I can't believe he got away with it for all those years right under everybody's noses."

"It's like Longbottom said," Eldridge said gruffly, "he was practically invisible over the past decade. He became a faceless employee of the ministry and that suited his purpose just fine."

"Listen Harry," Fred said with a frown that hadn't left his face since the twins had arrived with George's girlfriend Verity, "are you absolutely sure that when Ron said McAteer he wasn't talking about an accomplice or anything?"

Harry smiled and I saw Ginny squeezing him tightly around his chest.

"It's the chaser of the Cannon's I promise you all," he looked Eldridge in the eye, "I promise you sir. It's one of his techniques to keep himself relaxed. He lists things, mundane things that make him think about something else, and if he was in the water as long as the mediwizards said he was then he would have been trying to stay awake."

"Thinking about the Cannon's would send me to sleep," George mumbled with a small smile.

Verity gave him a reproachful nudge while Molly deliberately ignored the comment.

"Well I'm sure Harry's right about this McAteer person, it certainly sounds like Ronnie to keep himself going like that," she said as she rose from her seat on the other side of Ron's bed.

"Molly?" Arthur said as he wondered where his wife could possibly be going.

"Cam was flooing Fleur from Hogwarts when Bill got the owl and heard about Ron. He was quite upset and I just want to let him know not to worry."

Bill had been at the hospital for two hours before getting back to Fleur who had stayed to reassure her son that his favourite uncle was going to be alright. The family had a method to get through times like these. Ron had come to the Burrow on what was an ordinary Sunday lunch for the rest of us but what turned out to be his fortieth birthday for him. We felt bad for him to be missing it and threw him an impromptu party there and then and that thought would get us through some tough times.

"Remember Ronnie's party?" Molly would always say if ever anybody got too upset as we waited for him to recover from his latest disastrous seizure, "He still has that day to come."

Nobody ever said what was playing on our minds with every passing year. What would we do once Ron was forty years old in the present? As far as our future sightings of him after that went there wasn't a lot to go on other than my insistence that I eventually re-create Dumbledore's spell.

Molly left and Arthur sat across from me with a warm smile. I was surprised that didn't thaw Ron out in itself. I smiled back. Neither of us was really speaking that evening. We just waited for our boy to come round and let all the talk of Seamus' betrayal go on around us.

I would get angry about that later. Arthur would tear the ministry apart and demand a security reform on all internal personnel. But for now we would wait for Ron to open his eyes, smile that tired smile he always threw our way when he woke up in the hospital and mumble something that contained am expletive.

Harry had been taking this Seamus thing very personally. I think something went on during that whole Lavender period that Harry had a hand in and he must have believed that this was the reason for Seamus targeting the whole department rather than just Ron in his quest for revenge.

Revenge for Lavender Brown.

She had been dead for years and she was still a thorn in everybody's side. I pitied the poor girl now. She didn't deserve her memory to be tainted by an ex who refused to let her be dead and an unrequited love that couldn't help but keep returning to her during the summer of 1999 to try and stop her from making the greatest mistake of her life. All she wanted was to be loved after all. All Seamus wanted was to love her. Something as simple as that seemed to have evolved into this catastrophe we now found ourselves in.

"I want to find him," Harry was saying to Eldridge, "I want to track him down. If there's a team I want to be on it sir."

"Not now Potter, we'll assemble on Monday and work something out alright?" the head of the Aurors said with a smile.

RON: I woke up and felt something heavy on my chest. It was Hermione's head.

"Listening to the lullaby again eh?" I muttered.

"What was that son?"

I jumped as I saw my dad's face lean in from the darkness and glow in the candlelight. He was smiling expectantly as he asked me to repeat myself.

"I've gone a bit mutt in my old age," he said as the shadows made every wrinkle on his old face seem three times as deep, or maybe it was just the worry.

I smiled at him and nodded down at my sleeping wife.

"I was just saying that she can't stay awake when she lays her head on me like that, out like a light," I had meant to click my fingers as I said that but was still a little too tired to really be bothered.

"How are you feeling Ron? Do you need anything? Do you need Ben, he's on call for you all night."

"Oh he isn't is he? Send the poor sod home!" I said with a weary laugh.

"It was all I could do to get the family to leave," dad said as he rolled his eyes, "of course your mother's still here, hence my whispering," I laughed again, "Hermione and there's a darkened corner over there somewhere with Harry and Ginny snuggled in it."

My eyelids were falling closed again and my dad took my hand in his.

"McAteer eh?" he said with an arched eyebrow.

What was he talking about? Then I remembered.

"Oh yeah, last one that came to me."

"Did you swear when you got to Rogers' name?" dad smirked.

My eyes closed and I settled back down to sleep.

"Of course."

My dad patted the back of my hand.

"That's my boy."

My eyes opened again, it felt as if I'd slept for another hour but dad was till leaning forward with the amused smile on his face so it must only have been seconds.

"Dad?" I said, the weight of worry falling back onto my shoulders again.

"What is it Ron?" my dad said, ready to call a healer on seeing my demeanour change so suddenly.

"He got away didn't he?"

I watched as my father pressed his lips together firmly and nodded his head. His eyes lowered and he blew air out while his shoulders fell.

"There's always next time," I mumbled as I let myself drift off into unconsciousness once again.

"Yes indeed," my dad said as he met my eyes just before they closed, "only next time you'll be ready for him."

I fell asleep with Hermione's weight on my chest and my dad's wrinkled hand still resting on the back of my own.

I knew who I was looking for now. It would only be a matter of time and that was something I had to my advantage.


	26. One Day In September

**One Day In September**

_14th September 1999 (Ron is 19)_

RON: I had come to work just like normal. There was nothing remarkable going on at the department today. I had no cases pending and even Parker had seemed normal with me at the water fountain. Lavender had been quite professional too, the only indication that things were still a little strange between us was her pointed little remark about me moving out of my brother's house and getting a place of my own.

"I have a place of my own Lavender."

"Then why aren't you welcome there?" she asked me quietly before stepping out of the office without waiting for the answer I was struggling to give her.

She had stopped answering her door to both Neville and Seamus now and when I saw Parvati and Dean a few days ago they said that Lavender had declined all invitations to come to their place for dinner. Parvati had mentioned something about feeling slightly responsible for my break up with Hermione but I didn't want to hear it and made my excuses to get back to the office and away from another set of reassurances that Hermione would come round soon.

It had been nearly three months. I didn't know I would have to wait this long. It was getting harder and harder to stay away from her. I wanted to plead my case and get her to see sense but she had become cold and bitter towards me now. Apparently she wouldn't even give the time of day to my other selves if we happened to appear in the flat. This is what Harry and Ginny had told me anyway. They've been stopping by almost every evening to make sure Hermione isn't lonely and I've been busy helping Fleur with the baby when I get back from work while Bill's away this week.

Of the few things that Lavender and I have in common loneliness has become one of them. We both get to work too early and stay too late because we don't have anything waiting for us at home and we can't stand to be around our friends because they just remind us of what we don't have.

She had stepped into the office with a strange look on her face this morning.

"Do you ever get tired of waiting Ron?" she asked me with a detached look in her eye.

I knew she was just hoping for me to get over Hermione and move on but that was never going to happen.

"Of course I get tired of it but I'll keep doing it for as long as it takes," I replied while looking at some paperwork rather than her face.

"Well I've decided not to wait for you anymore Ron," she said, causing me to look up and see her smiling sadly, "I've decided to take control of my life at last."

I actually had a little hope on hearing that.

"Good for you."

She had stepped out of the office and I hadn't had any need to call her in again since.

I must have fallen asleep at my desk because Harry was tapping me on the side of my face and I sprang up to attention and felt my chin for drool.

"Shit nobody saw me sleeping did they?" I asked him in a state of panic, "It's the baby, he was screaming all night. None of us slept."

Harry let out a deep sigh and straightened up with a smile.

"Ron mate, do you know what time it is now?"

I blinked as I looked up at him, turned to the clock on the wall and then back to my friend again.

"It's a quarter past six why?" then I did a double take and looked at the clock again, "It's quarter past six! I slept the whole afternoon? Langley's gonna kill me!"

Harry slapped me on the shoulder to reassure me that I was not in any trouble with anybody before shoving a piece of paper under my nose.

"Just sign that for me and then you're coming to have dinner at our place alright?"

I took the paper from him and frowned when I saw it was a transfer request.

"Where do you want to transfer to?" I asked him.

"No it's not mine, it's Lavender's. She's decided to start over in a different department."

I re read the piece of paper and felt a years worth of stress leave my body all at once. She had really done it. She was really letting go at long last. I signed the form and put it on top of my out pile with a smile as I got up from behind my desk and caught the coat that Harry had just thrown at me from the cloak stand.

"She's really trying isn't she?" I said happily, "I didn't dare hope after what she said this morning but..."

"What was that?" Harry said, turning on me suddenly with wide eyes.

"Um," I hadn't expected Harry to get so rigid all of a sudden, "she just said that she wasn't going to wait around for me anymore. Y'know like she was getting over it all. _Finally_," I said as I pulled on my coat.

Harry seemed to relax again as he turned away from me and lead the way out of the office.

"It's good that you're both...free of each other now."

I wondered what Harry was being so weird about as we headed downstairs to check out for the weekend and floo over to Harry's flat.

"I can't believe I fell asleep for six hours!" I said with a shake of my head.

* * *

_30th September 2023 (Ron is 19 and 43, Hermione is 44)_

HERMIONE: Harry came by to drop the kids off; they have been playing with Aimez and Ron while I made Harry a cup of tea.

"So you and Ginny are finally going to have a night to yourselves are you? That must feel novel for you both."

Harry rolled his eyes while Lilly screamed with delight from the other room.

"Do it again Uncle Ron!"

I heard Aimez and Sirius laughing about something while Ron and James found another grotesque thing to entertain them. The last time we baby sat for the Potter kids James found a way to make it look as if Ron's stumps were snakes and a whole puppet show was devised.

I closed the kitchen door with a chuckle so Harry and I could have some peace to talk. Something had been troubling Harry recently and Ginny had asked me to get to the bottom of it for her.

"What's this then? The pair of you are ganging up on me now are you?" he said as he folded his arms defensively.

I looked around myself and shrugged innocently.

"I don't see Ginny anywhere in this kitchen. Nobody's ganging up on you as far as I can tell."

Harry snorted and took a gulp of his tea before walking over to the window and looking out over the rooftops thoughtfully.

"Seriously Harry, something's really troubling you and everybody's noticed it so tell me or tell Ginny, tell anybody for Merlin's sake," I huffed as I stepped alongside him to stare up at his face, he looked very dark, as if he was under a permanent storm cloud, "I'll even go in there and face the minions alone just so I can send Ron in to..."

"No not Ron," Harry said, suddenly fearful, "Ron can't ever know."

I took Harry's arm and pulled him to sit at the kitchen table with me.

"So this is about Ron?" I frowned.

Harry stared at his tea and frowned so deeply that he looked fifteen years older.

"As much as I never want him to know what happened that day and I know he'd hate for you to know about it too but," he seemed to be struggling with something inside himself before reaching into his pocket and placing a small bottle on the table in front of me.

"Is that," I began as I squinted at the silver vapour inside the glass bottle, "a memory?"

Harry nodded and rubbed his face roughly.

"Whose is it?" I asked as I picked up the bottle and examined it against the light, it seemed to be quite old but extremely well preserved.

"Lavender Brown's," Harry said as if he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

I suddenly didn't want to touch the bottle any more. I put it down and slid it back over to Harry who had suddenly started rambling nineteen to the dozen.

"See I knew this was a mistake, I should never have kept it once I found out she died. I mean I only took it in the first place to blackmail her into transferring away from Ron that day but then everything with Seamus started up and I think that's all my fault as well Hermione. I think he knew it was me who drove her to it as much as he thought Ron had done. That was why he was against the whole Auror division and not just Ron y'see? He wanted to avenge Lavender's death and he blamed the whole department."

"Whoa Harry just slow down for me will you?" I tried to calm his verbal runaway train but he just couldn't stop himself now that he had started.

"And how am I supposed to ever tell Ginny? How am I supposed to tell her what I saw and what I knew and what Lavender did to her brother that day, that I let her get away with it? She should have gone to Azkaban for that Hermione and maybe if I'd got her arrested she would have or maybe she would have been put into a facility to help her and then she wouldn't have been able to go home that day and kill herself."

"Harry I am not following any of this? Are you saying Lavender did something illegal the day she died? Are you saying she did something illegal to...to Ron?" I felt myself struggling to hold on to my composure.

"I've kept it from Ginny and I've kept it from Ron and I've kept it from you all this time and I almost put it away in my mind as if it was just a nightmare I once had but then last week..." Harry had his head in his hands and seemed to still be struggling with himself whether or not to confide in me at all.

"Harry, what happened last week?"

"Ron came," he said as he looked up with a pained expression on his face, "Neville had just come to the flat where he was having dinner with me and Ginny and told us that Seamus had found Lavender dead at her flat. She had killed herself with the killing curse and not left a note or anything. There was nothing to go on other than what had happened to her that day at work and all anybody knew was that she had requested a transfer from Ron's employment and told him that she was going to stop waiting for him."

I nodded. This had shaken everybody who knew any of the hurt parties involved and it had been the thing that had set Seamus on his vengeful campaign against Ron, the person who had driven Lavender to kill herself. The news that a portrait had later reported that he had been present for her death as a traveller made Seamus even less able to think clearly and tipped him over the edge. A nineteen-year assault on the ministry had erupted and too many innocent people had been caught in the crossfire. Ron had all but fired Lavender Brown and later that day he watched her die without lifting a finger.

We all knew why that was now of course. Ron wasn't able to walk and he still hadn't been transported into that flat on that day in September 1999. He wouldn't have been able to get up and he wouldn't have had a wand to disarm her. He would have only been able to try to talk her out of it and had clearly been unsuccessful.

"So he had a seizure right then and there didn't he?" Harry said to me.

I hadn't been there when the news of Lavender's death had been delivered. I was still estranged from Ron at the time and only found out from Parvati late that night via floo.

"He left for eight hours and he came to me Hermione," Harry looked as if he was shaking, "he came to me last Thursday."

I rubbed Harry's arm. It was strange how Harry could almost handle it when Ron came to him from the past badly hurt and sometimes on the verge of death but when Ron came to him in any kind of emotional distress Harry was at a loss and always somewhat traumatised himself for days afterwards.

"That must have been a rough conversation for you both to have had to put you in this state?" I said with sympathy.

"But the thing is," Harry said, going pale all of a sudden, "he kept asking me what had happened that day and rambling on about falling asleep at his desk."

As Harry said this he pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes roughly before continuing.

"He was tearing himself up because he didn't even remember the conversation with Lavender about her leaving. He didn't remember saying goodbye to her or anything about that day other than his first interaction with her that morning when she said what she did about not waiting any more."

This had always troubled Ron over the years, he had never had anything like that happen to him before or since.

"The thing is," Harry said as he put his glasses back on with a shaking hand, "he...it wasn't...It's my fault she killed herself that day and it's my fault Seamus went bad the way he did."

Harry blurted this so clearly that it surprised us both.

"Harry what are you saying?" I asked as I looked back down at the bottle containing the memory again.

"I obliviated Ron so he wouldn't remember what happened that afternoon," Harry said, looking as if he was about to be sick.

I shook as if a sudden icy chill had just swept through the kitchen. I tried to say something but I couldn't think of anything to say. There were so many questions and protestations and proclamations of outrage but all I could do was gape at him like a grounded fish.

"He can't ever know Hermione," Harry said with as much determination as his sickened face would allow him to muster, "I still don't think I'm doing the right thing in telling you but no matter what happens Ron must never know what she did...tried to do...whatever. I know what he's like and he wouldn't...he couldn't..."

Harry's head fell into his hands again and he growled into them while gripping his grey-flecked hair with his pale fingers.

"Harry what did she do to him?" I asked, my throat was suddenly dry as I heard the sounds of Ron and Aimez howling with laughter from the other room.

"He came last week and he was talking about waiting for you and being so lonely and now he had killed somebody without even remembering, without even noticing it and he looked me in the eye and," Harry looked up and saw me staring right at him, demanding an answer to my question, "and he said that she deserved better from him and maybe you did too."

Harry seemed to glare at the glass bottle between us now.

"If only he knew, but he can't know it'd kill him and he wouldn't keep it from you. He never broke that promise he made to you to tell you everything about the Lavender issue you know that don't you?"

I knew, I nodded but my voice was absent still so all I managed was a humming sound as I urged him to get to the damn memory.

"I blackmailed her with that memory, the memory I forced her to extract, and I got her to fill in that transfer request and I threatened her with Azkaban and the dementors for what I'd caught her doing when I came to the office that day. I drove her to it and Seamus knew something like that had gone on. He knew that the department were involved in a cover up and he didn't buy Ron's story of falling asleep for six hours either. He knew somebody had him obliviated but he didn't know who it was. Everything that came out of that mess was all down to the way I handled things on that day Hermione. Everything's my fault and I think you should know what really happened before I destroy this memory for good."

I reached out and took back the bottle while trying to read Harry's facial expression with my narrowed eyes.

"Seamus is in prison, Ron is retired and Lavender's dead. I think it's time we put this whole thing to rest for good but I can't do it while I'm still the only one who knows the truth and Ginny would just explode if I confided it in her. I love her but you've seen how she gets when she's being protective over her brothers. She loses all sense of reason."

I gripped the bottle harder in my fist now and both longed for a dreaded the moment I found a pensive to use to share Harry's burden of the truth of that day in September.

"You're my best friend Hermione. I need you to see what I did and why I did it. I need somebody to forgive me and the only person left who can is finally happy and I can't do this to him now so I have to ask you and I'm so sorry Hermione," Harry dropped to his knees and hugged me, "I'm sorry."

* * *

_14th September 1999 (Ron is 19 and Hermione observes at 44 from a pensive)_

Lavender has filed away all her work for the day. She has tidied her desk and written a small note to hang upon the door of Ron's office declaring _'Confidential meeting in progress - DO NOT ENTER' _before knocking and stepping inside.

Ron is balling up a piece of parchment and tossing it into the fire when he turns and sees Lavender closing the door behind her and performing a silent locking charm upon it. Ron steps away from the fireplace and seems to be very uncomfortable.

"Um did we get an owl from the minister or something because...?" he began.

Lavender smiled and pointed her wand at the door again. This time the shimmer of a silencing charm formed a tight seal over the door. She looked back at Ron and took in a deep breath before letting it out again.

"What were you burning Ron?" she said calmly.

"I...Just a private correspondence. Lavender what's going on?"

Lavender put her finger to her lips and shushed Ron with a smile. Ron looked nervous now and he swallowed before edging back over to his desk where his wand rested so near but so far.

"Were you about to write another begging letter to Hermione again?" Lavender said in a playful little voice that made me as sick as Ron looked.

Ron glanced back to the flames in his fireplace and was about to respond when Lavender gave several disapproving tuts.

"You shouldn't have to grovel to her Ron. She doesn't deserve your dignity anymore than she deserved your love or your loyalty."

Ron made a definite move for his wand now and Lavender summoned it into her own hand and shook her head.

"Now we don't need that do we Ron?"

"I was just gonna sit down," Ron smiled uneasily.

There was something about Lavender's unfaltering smile that made me feel woozy. I knew I was watching a memory but I just wanted to scream at Ron to floo out of there at once but he was right at his desk now and far from the fireplace. What was she up to?

"You see she doesn't want you and you say you don't want me yet the three of us are all hurting so badly it's a wonder none of us are in St Mungo's. We're all lonely Ron and it doesn't have to be that way now, not for us, not now that Hermione has let you go. You're free now and I'm free now and it's like I said this morning..." her smile became one of determination now, "...I'm sick of waiting. No more waiting Ron."

Ron was about to say something, he was already shaking his head and trying to think fast, but Lavender pointed her wand at his face and uttered a word that made my scream cause the image of the memory to ripple around me.

"_Imperio!"_

It had only been a whisper but it had done the trick and Ron was immobile. Lavender looked so happy she was on the verge of tears. Then she did burst into tears and her smile disintegrated.

"Look what you've made me do Ron. Look at me!" she screamed as Ron stared right at her with unblinking eyes, "I don't want you this way. I don't want to become this kind of person but this is the only kind of person who can ever get you away from Granger. I know you love her and it's wonderful how you're loyal and patient and waiting for her but she doesn't deserve it Ron. You've done nothing wrong and she's still punishing you anyway so I figure we may as well go ahead and do what you're being punished for."

I couldn't move, I couldn't speak or scream and shout, and the only thing I could do was think where was I? Where was I while this crazy bitch was throwing unforgivable curses at my husband?

"I almost did it before you know? That ward that hit you after we both came back to work from our...illnesses. That was me trying out the curse to see if I could do it and it worked. But then I felt so disgusted with myself I went straight back home and one of you came and found me. You always find me just in time Ron. If you didn't like me at all then why would you come to save me every time? It was almost as if I was doing it to get you to come."

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks and looked at the locked door, preying that Harry came bursting in to save the day just in the nick of time, but there was nothing. I looked back and saw Lavender taking a step closer to Ron's desk.

"Come here," she said with a tiny voice and seemed to wince with pain as Ron obeyed without a flicker of emotion or any kind of struggle.

"No," I gasped hoarsely and looked back to the door again, "Harry when do you come? Where are you? Why aren't you stopping this?"

Ron stood before Lavender just in front of his desk. They were only inches apart and Lavender wiped her welling eyes with the heel of her palm before resting her free hand upon Ron's cheek.

"I'm so sorry but I can't stop myself Ron," she whispered, "please don't hate me."

"Don't," I began to shake my head and cover my eyes, "don't let this happen, don't let this have happened, please don't..."

"Kiss me like you love me," Lavender said breathlessly.

I dropped to my knees and screamed into the carpet as Ron pulled Lavender towards him and kissed her with a hungry passion. Where was Harry? How long did she get to use him like this before they were interrupted? Why couldn't Harry have just told her that this happened? Why did she have to see it?

At the sound of the quills and ink bottles going flying from the desk top I looked up to see the two of them on top of Ron's desk, Ron flat on his back and Lavender on top of him and they both kissed with painfully convincing passion. I couldn't watch. I tried to pull myself out of the pensive, I'd seen enough, and I couldn't bear to wait for Harry any longer.

"Tell me that you love me," I heard Lavender whispering as Ron caressed her neck with his lips.

"You're _sick_!" I screamed over to the memory of Lavender, "There's something wrong with you. How could the ministry have let you get this far? How could nobody have put you away or got you help before this?"

"Tell me you love me," Lavender demanded again with a breathy moan.

That was when I realised; Ron hadn't done as he was told that last time.

"Lav..." Ron seemed to be grimacing, he was fighting it, "...wait, no."

"Get off him!" I found myself yelling at such a volume I even surprised myself.

"Ron?" Lavender frowned as she looked as Ron tried to wriggle out from under her, "_Imperio!"_ she said fearfully as she reinforced the curse on him.

She plunged her mouth over his again and began to tug at his shirt while they kissed with the same ferocity as before.

"Come on Ron," I found myself trying to make myself heard some twenty-four years too late, "Harry's on his way, don't give up please."

As Lavender pulled Ron's shirt off him and set about undressing the rest of him she tried to force him to give her what she needed more than kisses and physical intimacy one more time.

"Tell me you love me Ron."

"I..." Ron panted as Lavender lifted her skirt and wriggled up to rest both her knees upon the desk and lower herself down onto him.

"Tell me you love me," she instructed again after sealing his mouth with her own for a second and pulling her underwear down to her knees.

"I love..." Ron gasped and his foot kicked at the chair beside his desk, sending it to the floor with a loud thud.

I heard the locking charms being lifted and looked hopefully to the door as Lavender hit Ron with the curse for a third time and growled down at him at the same second Harry burst into the room.

"Make love to me as if I'm Granger!"

"I love you," Ron gasped as he pulled Lavender closer and she wriggled her hips, about to take what she wanted for so long.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ Harry roared and Lavender's wand flew across the room and she screamed with shock as Harry stunned her and the room went black.

I was in the darkness with my hands clasped to my face and almost breathless at everything I had just witnessed. It had taken three curses to get Ron to submit and even then she had to make him think she was me. It was with a revolted kind of pride that I burst into tears just as the pensive lit up again and I was back in the office with Harry, Lavender and Ron.

Lavender was looking groggy and Ron was in his chair at his desk, face down and apparently asleep.

"Ron?" Lavender said with a frown as she glanced around Harry to see where he was.

"Sleeping charm, I've wiped his memory of...of that," Harry spat with disgust, "How could you do that?"

Lavender broke down in tears and Harry scowled at her with no sympathy whatsoever.

"I should call the rest of the Aurors and get you locked up with the Death Eaters or bundled into a ward with Lockheart and the Longbottoms for what I just caught you doing to him now stop grizzling and give me a reason not to drag this through the Prophet and your reputation through the mud."

"No," she sobbed and buried her face in her hands.

"That's not a reason Lavender!" Harry hissed.

"But R-Ron," she said as she looked up through her tears and pointed to his slumped figure at the desk, "you took his memory. You don't want him to know what I did. You can't tell anybody or he'll know."

"Don't pretend you care about Ron's feelings!" Harry barked at her.

I'd never have thought that Harry would hit a woman but this Harry was looking as if he really wanted to right now.

"I do though, and you do Harry, he'll feel so...so..."

"Dirty?" Harry offered and Lavender broke into wails of self-pity and nodded her head.

I was shaking with fury and willed Harry to hex her into shutting up. What did she have to cry about? Did she expect pity, mercy, and understanding? I knew she was sick but I never realised she was dangerously so. I couldn't believe what had almost happened and thanked Godric that Harry had come along when he did.

"Right well we agree on one thing anyway," Harry said as he sat down across from the whimpering Lavender and pushed her wand into her hand, "Ron can never know about this so you will extract that memory for me and drop it in here."

Harry held out the bottle and Lavender gripped her wand tightly and frowned.

"But why...?" she began to question his motives.

"You will put your memory of what you've just done to him in here and then we can negotiate a way to keep the Aurors and the press and everybody else but you and me out of this for good."

Lavender swallowed before sniffing and nodding her head. She extracted the memory and let it fill the glass bottle that Harry put a stopper into and then protected with a magical seal before putting it into his pocket. I wondered why I was still able to watch after this had happened.

"Now you are going to do what I say otherwise Eldridge and Langley are going to watch this whole thing and decide what to do with you."

"No!" Lavender sobbed with horror at what the head of Aurors and Ron's immediate superior would do to her when her indiscretion was discovered, "Please don't tell them, you promised Harry. You said you wouldn't, for Ron's sake."

"You," Harry said as he pointed a finger into Lavender's face with a livid look on his face, "don't dare talk to me about what is best for Ron understand?"

She nodded and sat rigid in her seat. I felt like cheering Harry on as he put the crazy little strumpet in her place.

"First you will fill this out for me," Harry pulled the transfer request out of his pocket and shoved it into her hands, "this isn't just a transfer downstairs, this will get you reassigned to a part of the building where you'll be lucky to see daylight again let alone bump into Ron in the corridors."

She shuddered as she nodded and reached out a shaky hand for a quill.

"You will clear your desk and go home before he wakes up and if he comes to you in his travels you will remember that I still have this," he tapped his pocket with the bottle inside, "and I see future versions of him too. I will know if you try this again and I will make you pay for it."

She made a whimpering sound and nodded her head again.

"I don't want to see or hear of you coming anywhere near any of my friends ever again do you hear me?" he said as he pointed his wand into her face and she nodded for a third time, "If you think I've been hard on you just imagine what his family will have to say about this so you had better keep your mouth shut for the rest of your life so I don't have to let them ever find out."

"Harry I didn't want to hurt anybody," Lavender began to say shakily.

"Not even Hermione?" Harry blinked coolly.

"I _didn't_," she insisted, "I just can't settle for any old body. I wanted somebody to love me the way he loves her."

Harry put his wand away and got to his feet with a scowl.

"Love isn't transferable Lavender. Now get out and stop making excuses, if I want bullshit I'll go to a farm."

Lavender stood up and gestured over to Ron's sleeping form.

"Should I say goodbye or resign officially or something?" she sniffed.

"You don't ever speak to him again. As far as he's concerned he fell asleep and you stopped being his problem. It'll be like waking from a long nightmare I assure you."

Lavender rushed out of the office and began collecting up her personal belongings while Harry put his own wand to his head and pulled out the glass bottle. He was adding his own perspective of this to the memory and as soon as the silvery wisp of thought left his temple I fell back out of the pensive and stumbled back into the wall.

I watched as the images I had just been tortured by swirled around inside the pensive and took out my wand to destroy that last evidence of that awful day in September.

I just hope that when Ron eventually puts that day to rest once and for all he doesn't find out about this. I just hope that long hellish day ends for us all soon. I hope that Ron's final visit to Lavender Brown isn't as bad as Seamus made it out to be.

I hope the summer of 1999 will end soon.


	27. The Curse of The Seventh Weasley

**The Curse of the Seventh Weasley**

_8th August 2014 (Ron is 34 and 29, Hermione is 34)_

HERMIONE: I had been walking around the maternity section of Madame Malkin's shop with Ginny when we heard the bell ringing as a customer burst into the shop and stumbled over to a shocked Madame Malkin in a breathless panic.

"Do you have a fireplace I can use? There's been some kind of accident outside."

Ginny and I glanced at each other with a frown and leaned to peer out of the window. A large crowd had gathered and all we could see were people's backs.

"Come on Ginny, let's not rubber-neck, I hate it when people do that, it's so thoughtless," I said as I rubbed the slight bump that was now forming in my belly.

"Yeah you're right," Ginny nodded as she scrunched up her nose with distaste toward all the nosy vultures who wanted to gawp at the misfortune of another, "so do we go for a larger size so you and junior can grow into it then?"

I was about to give Ginny a playful shove when the bell above the door rang again and somebody else ran inside in a state of panic. I resolutely refused to turn my head and be nosey.

"I need to..." the panic-stricken voice began.

"This gentleman is about to floo St Mungo's for a medi wizard right now sir, don't worry," Madame Malkin said.

"Healer Wanless!" the voice yelled across the shop, striking me with an icy chill that almost froze the life out of me.

As I spun around I saw Ginny's terrified expression as she looked across the shop to call out to her frantic brother.

"Fred?"

I was already throwing the armful of fabric I had to the floor and rushing for the door when Fred met my eyes and grabbed me about the arms.

"Ask for Healer Wanless!" he shouted over my shoulder before looking me in the eyes and speaking with a shaky but low tone, "Hermione it's our Ron, he just came back to me and George in the street and he's not..."

I could feel Fred shaking as he gripped me.

"...He's not breathing or moving or nothing."

Ginny ran for the door and flung it open, screeching at the crowd to get out of her way. I tried to follow but Fred was still holding on to me and shaking his head, his eyes wide and his voice sounding so unlike his usual cocky self that it was almost as unsettling as what he was saying to her.

"We're trying everything and it's not working," Fred's voice suddenly went high, he seemed to be descending into a panic attack, "C.P.R.'s not working, nothing's working!"

I shook him off just as the fireplace erupted into green flames and Fred followed me out the door and through the crowd where I saw George on his knees flicking charm after charm at Ron's chest, tears rolling down his face as he did. Ginny was rummaging through a medicinal bag that Verity had brought from the twin's shop and started pouring different potions and remedies down Ron's throat. I sank down to my knees and held my small rounded stomach as I watched them both trying and failing at everything.

"Out of my way, let me through," A familiar voice was bellowing at the crowd, "I'm his healer now _move!_"

Ben burst through the spectators and almost fell over me where I was crouched at Ron's bare feet.

"Sorry Mrs Weasley, what's happened? Do we have any idea?" he asked as Ginny moved aside to let Ron's healer listen to his chest while a hand that must have been Fred's gripped my shoulder tightly.

"We were talking to him outside the shop," George said shakily, "and he had a seizure and as soon as we picked up his stuff he was back like this. He...he wasn't breathing and he didn't have a pulse and-"

"What?" I gasped as I looked up at Ben just as he lifted his head from Ron's chest and shook his head.

"_Spiritus-_" Ginny said as she swished her wand down at Ron before George grabbed her arm and pointed the wand to the ground.

"We've tried that, we've tried everything Ginny."

I've seen him older. He can't be dead I've seen him older. Ben will fix him. Ben fixes him.

"Fix him!" I snapped at Ron's healer as he quickly scanned Ron's entire body for some sign of what could have caused this full body shutdown.

"I don't know what's wrong with him," Ben mumbled before pulling out his wand and swirling it around in tight circles in front of Ron's still pale face, "_Invenio sano! Invenio sano! Invenio sano!_ Come on find it and heal it for me, he mumbled to himself as the spell flowed into Ron's body and something glowed beneath his skin before fading into nothing.

George grabbed Ron's wrist and checked his pulse again before looking up at the bemused healer and shaking his head.

"What the hell happened to you?" Ben growled down at Ron before throwing more healing spells at him, "_Corrigo! Permeo pulpa corroboro! Spiritus indentiem! Vivificus!_ Shit!

Ginny had started to cry. I heard shouts from behind me somewhere. Somebody else was trying to get through.

"Move your fat arse out of my way old man!"

I felt my whole body shudder and I didn't dare turn my head to see. I didn't dare hope. Not until I saw the expression on George's face change from one of desperate fear to a look of relieved hope. Ginny gagged on her own sob that had stopped so abruptly that it had jarred in her windpipe and Healer Wanless shuffled to one side to let the new arrival drop beside him by the cold pale body on the ground.

"Get out the way Ben," the new Ron said as he balled his hand into a fist and positioned it over his other self's still chest.

Ben blinked and tried to ask what was going on when the new Ron lost patience and shoved him backwards onto his backside and drew a sharp deep breath and raised his arm. Gritting his teeth he swung his fist back towards the spot on the breathless Ron's chest and slammed it down with so much force that there was a hollow boom along with the sound of cracking bones as the punch landed.

All of us flinched at the force of the blow and then fell back in shock as the dying Ron sat bolt upright and gasped for air while choking and wheezing at the same time.

"Right," the new Ron said as he pulled Ben back forward and pointed at the injured Ron as he slammed back down onto the floor and continued gasping, his eyes wide to the point of bursting out of his skull altogether, "now you can fix him with wands. Do his ribs first, I've busted a couple."

Ben didn't say a word; he just set about flicking his wand down at the recovering Ron on the ground. Fred was laughing now and George hugged Ginny but the healthy Ron crawled along the ground to me and threaded his arms underneath me before lifting me up and smiling at me sadly.

"Cover your ears babe," I frowned but did as I was told, Ron looked back out at the crowd and hollered at the top of his lungs, "Get out of my fucking way!"

In a dumfounded silence the crowd parted like curtains being drawn apart to let the daylight into a darkened room and Ron carried me through them and back into the shop.

"Ron what's going on?" I said, glancing over my shoulder to try and see how the treatment of my present-day husband was going, "I don't want to leave you."

"I have to get you to St Mungo's Hermione," he said with a tremor in his voice as he nodded to Madame Malkin to throw some floo powder into the fireplace for him, "you're bleeding."

"No I'm not," I began as I looked at him as if he was crazy.

"Check," he said just before calling out the name of our destination.

When he staggered out of the fireplace at St Mungo's with me still firmly in his arms I ran my hand over my body and wondered why he was so convinced that I was hurt. I hadn't been anywhere; it was my Ron lying naked in Diagon Alley who had been almost fatally injured.

"Sir what is it?" a medi witch said as she rushed up to the pair of us.

"It's my wife," Ron said as he ran with me over to a side room for treatment, the medi witch summoning assistance from a passing healer as we went, "she's losing her baby."

As he had spoken those last four words his voice had broken into a throaty choke and I lowered my hand and felt between my thighs. There was something warm and sticky and I felt my eyes burning with the fearful tears that were springing forth from them.

"Set her down on the bed for me dear, don't worry we'll help her and the baby."

I stared at Ron as he lowered me down onto a bed and slid his arms out from under me. Wiping his own, now tearful, face with the back of his hand.

"I'm sorry Hermione," he whimpered as he stumbled backwards into the wall.

"Ron?" I cried out as the healer blocked him from my view, "Ron!"

The healer moved aside and I saw that he was sliding down the wall and his head was dropping into his hands.

"Do they save it?" I called across to him.

"I'm only twenty nine Hermione, this isn't me yet. This isn't my life yet," he said, unable to look at me.

"But you know!" I screamed at him, my voice raw, "You knew to go and save yourself and you knew I was bleeding before I had started to. You know Ron, tell me."

He still had his head in his hands.

"I told myself to get to Diagon Alley and re-start my heart before getting you straight here before it kills you."

"What kills me?" I called across at him from the bed.

The medi witch and the healer were trying desperately to soothe me and block the visibly devastated Ron from my sight but I shoved them apart with my bloodied hand and yelled at him again.

"Before what kills me Ron?"

He looked up, his face red and his eyes redder.

"The miscarriage," I felt myself hollow out both emotionally and physically as Ron swallowed and shook his head in apology, "we don't get a baby this year Hermione. We don't get to have this baby."

As he faded into a heap on clothing pilled messily against the wall I wailed and screamed and cursed until there was no more sound left in me. There was nothing else left in me at all, nothing but myself.

RON: Charlie's been with me for three hours now. I told him I didn't want to see anybody but Hermione and she's told the mediwitch that she doesn't want to see anybody including me.

Charlie's been keeping people out of my room and not saying a single word to me. I think he's fast becoming my favourite brother for this act alone.

"Ron it's Ben let me in please," my healer's voice sounded through the closed door. I nodded to Charlie to let him come inside.

As the door opened I turned away from the half-dozen anxious faces I knew were peering in after him for a glimpse of the dead man who came back to life and the guy who knew that the baby his wife had been carrying so blissfully these past few months was destined never to be.

"Ron I need to know what happened to you to have sent you back to your brothers in that state."

I heard the door click shut and turned to face him.

"My usual," I said with a voice that sounded so far from my own I wondered if it was really me speaking at all, "I was trying to blindside the mole. I turned up on a day when I knew he'd just eluded me and tried to catch him while he left another me for dead."

Ben nodded and Charlie visibly shuddered.

"So what did he hit you with?"

"A non-verbal curse that stops the heart, that's all I know. Being non-verbal I wouldn't know a counter-curse and it's pretty resilient to magical remedies anyway so the only way I could have fixed it was to do it the old fashioned muggle way."

"And you knew all this at twenty nine because...?"

I took a deep breath in and let it out before answering.

"An older version of me told me when I was twenty eight. I've known since I was twenty eight that Hermione was going to lose six babies before we eventually get lucky."

Charlie looked devastated for me but Ben's eyes flew open wide as if a troublesome problem had finally been solved for him.

"Now she knows and she won't see me," I said as I drew my knees up to my sore chest and hugged them to myself, "She knows that I let her look forward to having a baby I always knew would never...be."

"You couldn't have told her Ron," Charlie said as he dragged a chair to my bedside and tried his best to make me feel better, "She'll understand that when the pain goes away a little more, she'll see that you couldn't have told her the day she found out she was pregnant that it...You couldn't have let her know and then expected her to carry the baby and just wait for this day to come."

"Your brother's right Ron, you did the right thing," Ben nodded as he patted me gently on the back.

"Then why do I feel like such a shit?" I scowled at the self-pitying sound of my own voice and buried my face into my knees to avoid looking at either of them.

"Because you do that Ron," Charlie said as the leather of the chair squeaked where he sat forward to try and find a way to make me meet his eyes, "you always find a way to hold yourself accountable for everything you can't do anything about. Just because you see something doesn't mean you can change it, isn't that what you always say?"

I look up but not at either of them. Instead I cast my gaze out through the darkened window.

"Maybe if I'd have let myself die today then history would've changed."

I felt Charlie struggling not to punch me in the arm for being such a prat.

"And how will that seventh baby ever come to be then you idiot?"

"Yes the seventh," Ben sighed, causing Charlie and myself to turn and stare at him.

"What?"

Ben cast a nervous glance Charlie's way before leaning in to talk to me in a conspiratorial manner.

"That little puzzle we're always trying to work out between the both of us," he began and I nodded, I knew exactly what he was getting at, "well it's been known for a time epileptic to be able to travel outside their own lifetime and into the lifetime of a parent or a child of theirs if they too suffer from the condition and the two conditions overlap."

I shook my head and tried to process this.

"So what are you saying?"

Ben tried to shut Charlie out of this conversation a little more by edging around to stand between us with his back to Charlie and his face a mere inch away from mine.

"I'm saying that it only effects the _seventh _child and you and your wife will conceive and go full term with your_ seventh _baby," Ben almost looked afraid of the conclusion he was coming to, "your child will be a time epileptic who can travel back before their birth into your lifetime and you..."

"I can travel past my own death and into their lifetime," I completed the sentence that he wouldn't, "Which would explain why I can see Hermione as an old woman but I never see myself as an old man. I really do die don't I?"

Ben pointed his finger into my face and set his own into a determined expression of denial.

"We don't know that."

The two of us stared into each other for an uncomfortably long time before the low clear rumble of Charlie's voice caused us both to lower our heads and sigh.

"You two do know I can hear everything you're saying don't you?"


	28. Race Against Time

**Race Against Time**

_27th February 2001 (Ron is 20, Hermione is 21)_

RON: Bill is supporting me along the corridors of St Mungo's while Fleur and a screaming Cam follow on behind and try to explain to the medi witch that is fussing around me that I don't need to go into a treatment room, I need to see my healer.

"You need to get 'ealer Wanless and tell 'im that Ronald Weaslee is 'ere and ee eez 'urt!"

"Listen don't get yourself upset Fleur," Bill grimaced as he struggled to hold me upright, "why don't you go and take Cam to mum's and let her know what's going on?"

Fleur was about to respond to this suggestion when my own need to keep my mother out of this overtook her.

"Don't worry mum about this," I winced, "It's nothing."

Bill gritted his teeth and tried to heave me up a little more, both my feet were dragging along the ground beneath me now, and he almost sounded angry enough to punch me.

"This is not nothing Ron!"

I had been away having quite a pleasant day at the fair with a seven year old version of my daughter Aimez when I reappeared at Bill's place, where I had gone into a seizure a full week and a half ago, only to reappear in _exactly_ the same spot I had vanished at the _exact_ same moment Bill was carrying a large umbrella through that _exact_ space.

"Oh c'mon Bill," I smiled weakly as my legs buckled underneath me completely now and Bill almost dropped me on the floor, "as long as you don't open it while we're indoors we'll be ok."

I heard the sound of Ben's laughter from somewhere behind me.

"Oh that would be bad luck wouldn't it? So what's the problem this time then Ron?" Healer Wanless said with the kind of blasé attitude that makes me so grateful for him at times like these, enough people panic and fret without him doing it too.

"What's the problem?" Bill snapped with disbelief that a healer would be joking around at a time like this, "He's got a bloody umbrella through him that's what the problem is!"

Ben was examining the spot on my left side where the umbrella penetrated through my flesh and clicked his fingers behind him, causing two medi wizards to appear with a floating stretcher and awaiting instructions.

"Lay him on his right side and hold him still for me while we get him into a treatment room," Ben said while moving around to get a look at the point of the umbrella thrusting through my back, "I don't know how you've done it Ron but I think you've missed all your vital organs with this."

I could feel my need to drift off to sleep weighing down my head and struggled to keep my eyes open as I smiled at him when he appeared in front of me again.

"Well I wasn't exactly aiming for any of them at the time Ben."

Just as Ben smiled back at me and I felt somebody trying to lift me out of Bill's arms I was hit by the rapid onset of darkness and my whole body fell limp as I dropped into unconsciousness.

HERMIONE: Ben keeps telling me we're going to laugh about this in the future. I'm trying to see the funny side of it I really am. Fred and George already have a lifetimes worth of umbrella jokes and Harry and Ginny have been fighting not to smile as they run through them all for their benefit.

Harry came about three minutes ago, Langley told him what had happened as soon as he arrived back at Auror HQ and he had gone straight to Luna Lovegood's place where he knew Ginny was visiting and told her the news. Mrs Weasley has been getting herself upset about her children's desperation to see the funny side of this bizarre little accident and Bill's not far behind her in the annoyed stakes.

Charlie had asked him if ever thought of taking up jousting and Bill had stormed out to avoid a stand up fight outside Ron's room. His dad had gone after him and Charlie had cowered under his mother's stern glare.

"You know how awful Bill feels about this now why can't you stop acting so childish? That goes for all of you!" Mrs Weasley had barked at the sniggering twins and a flushed looking Harry and Ginny.

"Oh come on mum, we're not laughing 'cause Ron got hurt," Fred tried to explain with the little charm he could muster right then, "but you heard Fleur didn't you? Ron was joking about it himself, his healer too, what good does all this worrying do?"

"Yeah," George piped up, "we know he's going to be ok don't we?"

Another row was about to escalate into a silent standoff between mother and sons when the door to Ron's treatment room opened and Ben leaned out and gave me a broad grin.

"I don't suppose you want to see your fiancé, 'the human doughnut', do you Miss Granger?"

For some reason the look on his face allowed me to smile at this as I stood up and stepped into the room without a word to the family who were now holding their breath and ready to pump Ben for information. I left him outside to answer all the questions and attempt to lighten the mood while I closed the door behind me and saw Ron laying on his side and grinning at me.

"Hey babe," he said roughly, "I'm back and I'm perforated!"

I laughed out loud as I ran to him and hugged him so tightly that he made a small whimper of pain but I didn't care. If he was well enough to joke then he was well enough to cuddle as far as I was concerned.

"What a stupid way to hurt yourself Ronald Weasley!" I said as I pulled away from him and bent down to kiss him on the lips.

"Well it wasn't planned!" Ron snorted.

I sat down beside him and took his hand with both of my own. I had missed him every one of the long days he had been gone and now it looked as if he wasn't going to be able to come home with me just yet now that he was back.

"How long did Ben say it would take to recover?" I asked as I looked down at his tender newly healed flesh to the left of his belly button.

Ron looked suddenly sombre and shook his head meaningfully. I felt my heart leap up into my mouth and threaten to suffocate me.

"Ben says it'll never be the same again. There's only so much he could do but," Ron put his hand to his face and choked back a sob, "It's lost its water resistance!"

As his shoulders shook and I realised that he was joking with me I couldn't help myself but hit him several times and shout with fury at his little 'joke'.

"I don't care about the bloody umbrella you moron!" I said, still hitting him as he laughed and winced at the same time, "Godric you and Ben are beginning to drive me crazy between you."

"Oh come on Hermione this is funny. An umbrella stabbed me! Of all the nasty things that could happen to me in my life getting stabbed by my brother's umbrella is going to turn out to be one hell of a story to tell the grandkids you've got to admit."

He really was going to be alright. He looked so amused and healthy and happy that I couldn't help myself and began to giggle as well. Soon the pair of us was crying with laughter as we listed all the potentially dangerous objects in our flat that Ron could now expect to be impaled upon during his travels.

As the door opened and the many faces of the Weasley family peered in I noticed Ben and Harry sharing a smirk at the sight of the two of us in hysterics and they all seemed to exhale as one.

"Bill," Ron called over to his less anxious oldest brother who was standing beside his father with a worried smile on his face, "Bill I'm so sorry, I'll buy you a new one!"

Ron fell back onto the bed and held his sore sides as another wave of laughter hit him again. I wiped my eyes and tried to compose myself for the sake of Molly but she was a little more easy-going herself now.

"Hey Ben you couldn't go back in there and see if he's got my keys by any chance could you?" Fred said with a chuckle.

"I don't know," George said with a shake of the head, "you can't put anything down these days without your little brother assimilating it!"

* * *

_1st March 2001 (Ron is 21)_

RON: What a way to spend your twenty-first eh, being checked out by a healer for residual pieces of umbrella?

"So I might have got you the best birthday present you've ever had Ron," Ben smiled at me as he ran his fingers over the slightly raised skin that was going to be my 'umbrella' scar before lowering my shirt.

"Well I seriously doubt that because I was once given the gift of poisoned mead as a birthday treat and I have to say nothing's topped that since."

Ben chuckled at this.

"Ah poisoned mead, the gift that shows you really care!"

I hopped off the bed and began to pull my jacket back on while Ben drew the curtains and walked me out of the treatment room and along the corridor with a very satisfied look on his face.

"So what's this gift then? Is it a hand knitted jumper with the letter 'R' on the front because, I hate to tell you this, I've already got one of those."

"Even better than that," Ben laughed as he slapped me on the back.

"Oh wow!" I feigned awe at this claim.

Ben stopped walking and pulled me around to face him by the hand that rested upon my shoulder. He wasn't going all serious on me but his tone had definitely changed I noticed.

"Ron do you think you could run a mile a day?"

I shook my head and blinked. Where had that question come from I wondered.

"Um yeah, I suppose, a mile's not far and we used to run laps before Quiddich practice at school. Why d'you ask?"

Ben began to smile again.

"I don't want to make you any promises, this might not work but will you do something for me?"

I frowned.

"What?" I asked with suspicion.

"I want you to run one mile every day for seven days and then come back here to me for another check up."

I subconsciously felt the new scar on my stomach with my right hand.

"Is this something to do with the umbrella?"

"No," Ben laughed as he shoved me and we both set off walking back to the exit again, "this is something I've been looking into and I just want to try it out. Would you do this favour for me?"

I nodded.

"A mile a day for a week, sure I can do that," I shrugged.

"And come back here first thing this time next week for another check-up?"

"Nine AM sharp, will do," I nodded again, "Ben what is this about?"

He smiled at me as we paused by the main doors back out into the muggle world.

"This is your birthday present Ron."

* * *

_2nd March 2001 (Ron is 21, Hermione is 21)_

RON: I had gone running as soon as I got back from the hospital yesterday and found that a lap of the park outside our flat was just over a mile so I did that in no time. My side didn't even hurt, Ben's really good at his job.

I didn't say anything about this running thing to Hermione. I wasn't going to hide it from her, she'd obviously notice that I was doing it, but I'd just keep the part about it being medical advice to myself until after Ben's check-up next week. There's no point telling her something I don't really understand myself. Ben wants me to trust him and I do so that's why I brushed my teeth, had a pint of water to drink and started warming up at the window at seven o'clock this morning in my joggers.

"What are you doing?" Hermione said from behind me, she was leaning against the doorframe of our bedroom with a sheet wrapped around her and a quizzical look on her face.

"Sorry didn't mean to wake you," I grinned as I stretched my hamstrings.

"You didn't," she said as she looked me up and down with suspicion, "I always know when you're not there and wake myself up."

My left leg dropped back down and I stared at her, I never knew that.

"Really?" I blinked.

She smiled and moved across the room toward me.

"Really. But you didn't answer my question oh king of evasiveness, where are you going?"

I chuckled as I put my arms around her and gave her a hug and a kiss before responding with the truth.

"I'm going for a run around the park."

She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Oh, I didn't think you were much of a jogger."

I shrugged and lifted my right leg to stretch it out as I had done with the left.

"Well I'm not but I just felt like it this morning. Pent-up energy or something, it can't hurt can it?"

"No you're right, exercise is always good," she nodded, "but I'm just worried about your injury. You don't want to aggravate it Ron."

"I won't," I said as I walked around her and headed for the front door, "Ben said I was fine to run."

Woops, she was definitely suspicious now.

"So you asked Ben if you'd be ok to run today then?"

I swallowed and opened the front door.

"Uh-huh."

"And you just happened to get up early this morning and feel like a run?" she said with that 'I got ya now' look on her face.

"Yup," I nodded before she narrowed her eyes at me and I knew I wasn't going to get away with it that easily, "Look I've just got it in me to go running recently and Ben thinks it's a good idea so I'm going to go running. I'm not up to anything."

"I never said you were!" she grinned with amusement, always able to make me feel guilty even when I'm doing nothing wrong.

"Well good 'cause I'm not," I smiled back at her, "You could come if you wanted to."

Hermione raised both her eyebrows now and shook her head.

"Not my thing I'm afraid Ron. I love you but you're on your own."

I feigned hurt before laughing and stepping out through the open door and calling back through as I closed it behind me slowly.

"I'm just doing a lap of the park, you can watch me from the window if you like."

* * *

_4th March 2001 (Ron is 21, Hermione is 21)_

HERMIONE: Off he goes again.

He wakes up and plants a kiss on my cheek, knowing now that I wake as soon as he leaves my side, before downing a camel's worth of water and putting on his running gear. By the time I'm up and out of bed he's finished his warm-ups and kisses me again before jogging out the door and down the stairs to head over to the park.

I make myself a cup of coffee and sit on the windowsill where I watch him maintaining his steady pace all the way around the edges of the park. It's freezing outside but it doesn't seem to matter to the five or six other joggers out this morning so I don't expect it bothers Ron either.

I sip my coffee and smile to myself as his figure disappears into a tiny shape on the far side of the park. I used to sit on the sidelines and pretend to read during Quiddich practice when we were at school but I was really watching Ron when he and the others did laps of the pitch before mounting their brooms and taking off. I think it was Quiddich practice that took away Ron's gangly physique and made him become athletically toned. He was still thin but not skinny like before.

I wondered if this is why the Ron's of the future are so much fitter than the Ron I've known so far. His arms are already bulking up. From the different ages of Ron I have seen so far he gets the strength in his arms first, then the upper body just a little, and finally he becomes the lean and muscular Ron who I know as my husband. Maybe this running thing will become a regular occurrence.

I don't mind as long as it makes him happy.

* * *

_5th March 2001 (Ron is 21, Hermione is 21)_

RON: I'm getting around this park much quicker today. I didn't cut any corners did I?

As I turn onto the home straight I see Hermione at the window. She's always at the window watching me. She's stopped asking questions but still doesn't quite understand why I'm suddenly Mr Athletic. I'm still not clear what Ben's aiming for with this either but I'm beginning to think that whether what he wants to come of this works or not I'll still keep doing it. I do actually feel better for it.

It's like I close off all the thoughts about work and seizures and everything that's happened over the years and just get lost in the rhythm of the run. I never feel like any time has passed and now that this lap is almost over with I could quite happily go around and do another one before going back to the flat.

But Ben said a mile a day so that's what I'll stick to until I find out what this is all about. I'll ask him when I go in for my check-up if I can do more than a mile in future. Who'd have thought that running in a big bloody circle every morning could put you in such a good mood for the rest of the day?

I reach the end of my run, stopping back at the gates opposite out flat where I begin every morning, and go through the warm down that Harry always made us do after every practice. Hermione waves at me from the window and mimes drinking before making the letter 'T' with her hands. I nod and she disappears to make me a cuppa.

I look at my watch and see that I've been a whole five minutes faster today.

"Blimey, I wasn't even in a hurry either!"

* * *

_6th March 2001 (Ron is 21 and 32, Hermione is 21)_

HERMIONE: I'm carrying Ron's cup of tea back from the kitchen when he opens the door and steps back inside panting and sweating.

"How do you get so hot?" I say with a shiver for good measure, "It's freezing out there."

"Only if you stand still babe," he smiles before leaning over and kissing me, making sure not to let his sweaty jogging clothes touch me.

He takes the tea and swallows a gulp before stripping his stinky tracksuit bottoms off and tossing them into the washing machine, followed by his sweatshirt and socks, before closing the door and tapping the machine with his wand.

He gulps down the rest of his tea and excuses himself to go for a shower. I have this whole routine memorised now, though not the timings, he's getting faster and faster every day. I'm beginning to think that soon he'll be out back showered and dressed before I even get myself out of bed. I hope not. I actually enjoy watching his little ritual. It's a very calming start to my day.

The bedroom door opens and a different Ron steps out wearing his other self's bathrobe. He is one of the well-built Rons so I'm assuming he's in his thirties.

"Hi Hermione, got anything to drink?" he smiles.

"Is that all any of you ever do?" I sigh as I roll my eyes and pull a carton of orange juice out of the fridge and hand it to him.

He laughs at me and shrugs.

"It dehydrates a bloke this time travelling, what can I say?"

I begin to make him a sandwich while he wanders into the living room and picks up a newspaper to find out the date.

"It's March the fifth!" he says after swallowing a mouthful of orange juice noisily.

"Sixth actually, that's yesterdays," I call back through to him.

"I've just started the running," on hearing the new Ron mutter this I look back through the doorway with a frown.

"Can you tell me what this running stuff is all about?" I ask.

"Oh come on Hermione," he says as he tosses the paper aside and strolls back to the kitchen and I turn to continue making his sandwich, "you've only got to wait one more day. Patience woman, patience."

I didn't like the sound of that.

"One more day for what?"

"Don't worry, just go with him when he sees Ben tomorrow."

"You're seeing Ben tomorrow, why, what's wrong with you?" I said with a little more panic than I really wanted to show.

"There's nothing wrong with me babe, I'm not the one you're worrying about am I?" he smiled before pulling me into a quick hug, "There's nothing wrong with him either. Just tell him you know where he's going tomorrow and go along with him. That way Ben can tell you both together."

I was about to hit my future husband for being so cryptic when my Ron emerged from the shower with a towel around his waist and another rubbing at his damp hair roughly.

"Oh hello," he said on seeing his other self, "when did you get here?"

"Just a little while ago," the visiting Ron shrugged, "nice run?"

My Ron frowned at him as if wondering what his other self knew that he didn't.

"Yeah."

"Juice?" the older Ron offered him the carton which he took with that same look on his face and drank from before handing it back, "I wish I'd have got here sooner we could have gone together. I prefer it when I run with myself."

My Ron laughed at this.

"You do?" he asked as I handed the older Ron his sandwich and set about making some breakfast for my Ron.

"Yeah," he nodded with a grin, "you're the only one who can keep up with me!"

* * *

_7th March 2001 (Ron is 21, Hermione is 21)_

RON: I don't know what my other self said to her but Hermione was dressed and ready to go by the time I got back from my run this morning. We are now sitting in Ben's treatment room and he is bobbing around in front of me with an unusually excited look on his face.

"Well what is this all about then?" I asked him.

He looked at Hermione and back to me with a grin.

"Did you tell her what I asked you to do for me?" he said as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.

"You asked Ron to run a mile a day for a week and didn't tell him why," Hermione nodded.

"That's exactly what I did," he nodded with that same infuriatingly happy grin on his face.

"Would you mind telling me why now?" I asked him with an annoyed huff.

Ben jumped up onto the bed in front of us and swung his legs off the edge as he leaned forward and looked me in the eye.

"You ran a mile every morning, every day, like I asked you right?"

"Yes!" I snapped at him.

"Anything strange happen to you?" he smirked.

I frowned and looked at Hermione. She was looking at me and gearing herself up to shout at me for not telling her about whatever it was Ben thought would happen to me that I had kept from her.

"No, nothing."

Ben punched the air. I glanced at Hermione with a worried frown.

"Here's the big question Ron," Ben said, almost shaking with excitement now, "How many seizures did you have over the past seven days?"

I blinked.

"One."

Ben began to bounce up and down on the bed a little.

"And how many do you usually have in a week Ron?"

"Four or f…" I stopped myself just as I understood what he had done, "…five."

Hermione gasped and grabbed my arm.

"You're controlling the seizures?" she said with a shake in her voice.

Ben couldn't sit still any longer and hopped off the bed to give me an enthusiastic slap on the shoulder.

"They're not controlled, I can't do anything to stop them all together but I think that if you focus your mind and your body on maintaining this routine every day then we can keep the number of episodes down by about seventy five percent."

I felt as if I was going to fall off my chair. Hermione was laughing and crying and threw her arms around me with delight. Ben beamed down at me and held out his hand. I held on to Hermione with one arm and extended the other to shake his hand.

"Happy birthday Ron!"

* * *

_A/N Is it just me or do any of you have a big crush on dear old Ben? _

_He's based on my physiotherapist and he was DAMN fine I can tell you!_


	29. Miss Granger Regrets

**Miss Granger Regrets**

_19th September 1999 (Ron is 19 and 42, Hermione is 20)_

HERMIONE: Happy Birthday to me.

I sat in my lonely flat and sipped my coffee while staring into space and feeling more miserable then I had ever felt in my entire life. I was twenty years old and separated from my fiancé because of his impending affair with a woman who was buried yesterday afternoon. Ginny had stormed into the flat last night and screamed at me to get over what I had convinced myself I had seen between him and Lavender and take him back.

We had quite a nasty fight about it actually. I think the thing that made Ginny stop yelling at me was the look on my face when she told me that Ron was hurting and beginning to shut people out again. Harry had even started popping in to his office three times a day to make sure that he was holding himself together and not in any danger of falling off the wagon.

I didn't want that. I didn't want to cause him any pain but I couldn't just sit around and wait for pain to be delivered to me in twenty years time. I hoped that Ron didn't give in to his demons again. The Weasleys had been concentrating on Ron a lot more since Lavender's death and I had seen nothing of any of them other than Fred's uncomfortable smile when I passed him in Diagon Alley.

From what Ginny and Harry had told me Ron was blaming himself for not handling the situation correctly and he had some kind of blank on most of that last day he worked with her that he just couldn't fill in. Harry seems unable to look me in the eyes whenever he talks about that day with me. I think he's siding with Ron too, poor Ron who's done nothing wrong but being punished anyway. Poor Ron who had one brief conversation with his secretary in the morning and by the evening was defending himself against the barrage of questions from Neville and Seamus about how exactly he had gone about getting her to sign that transfer request.

I had seen him talking to Dean and Parvati outside Lavender's flat when I passed by her street to get myself some lunch. Lavender's family were removing her possessions apparently and Parvati had insisted she get there first to take away anything Lavender might not have wanted them to see. This whole thing had hit Parvati hard and Dean was comforting her while talking to Ron in the street. Ron was looking very thin. I tried not to let myself worry but you can't break a nine-year habit just like that.

I walked on and that was the last time I had seen him. I missed him. I hated how much I missed him. I hated that I couldn't hate Lavender anymore. I hated the way Mrs Weasley had looked at me when I dropped a three-month-old Ron off at the Burrow just the other day. I wish I had never seen what was coming so I could at least have Ron for those twenty or so years before I lose him to his long dead ex girlfriend. I don't know how Ron can stand knowing the future, I only know the half of it and I'm finding just that unbearable.

I flinched as the bathroom door opened and an older version of Ron stepped out with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. He smiled at me when he saw me sitting curled-up on the sofa.

"Ron Weasley circa 2022 at your service," he joked.

"Get out," I mumbled as I got up from the sofa and rushed into the bedroom.

"Sorry?" he frowned at me in confusion.

I grabbed a handful of the things Ron had left behind when I kicked his present form out and threw them at the new arrival.

"You don't live here, get out!" I snapped as I closed the bedroom door and leaned against it to make sure he didn't try to come in and attempt to win me over with his charms.

I listened through the door but I heard nothing other than the muffled sounds of fabric moving and then the sound of something being filled with water from the tap. He was obviously getting something to drink before leaving without protest. I sighed; relieved to know that the Rons of the future knew their place wasn't with me any more.

"Hermione?" Ron's deep voice called through the closed door, making me jump with fright as I had been straining to listen as if he was still all the way inside the kitchen.

"I said get out Ron," I called, as I struggled not to sound upset.

"Yeah I will, I am, I just wanted to say..."

"Don't!" I ordered as I shoved my way away from the bedroom door and flung myself down on the bed.

I forced my eyes closed and buried my face into the pillow as I heard the bedroom door opening.

"I said leave!" I screamed into the pillow.

I felt the weight of him sitting down on the far corner of the bed.

"Have any of my other selves explained the gravity of time travel to you before Hermione?" he said calmly.

I tore my face away from the pillow and glared at him with watery eyes.

"I don't want to talk to you Ron. I don't want you here. You're only here because she's dead now."

Ron blinked as if I hadn't spoken at all and began to pick at a loose thread in the bedspread while he spoke.

"Y'see the bigger the situation the more versions of me get pulled toward it. It's like that time Harry almost drowned in that cellar and I travelled out of it while another version of me made it back there at the same moment to save him. The gravity of my originally leaving Harry was so heavy that an older me got pulled right back there to help him."

I sat up and held the pillow to myself.

"I don't care what explanation you've got for what you've done I just want you to go Ron. Go now," I said firmly.

"Then there's that multiple me day at Fred and George's isn't there? I torture myself to give myself an alibi and keep me out of Azkaban. That's a fairly traumatic thing Hermione so I kept on going back to that day; that place at that time."

I frowned at the strange look on his face. He was explaining something to me but not to get himself out of any trouble. It seemed as if he just needed to give me a lesson in the science of time-travel. I drew a breath to demand he leave again but he was already going on with his mini lesson and I bit my lip and let him continue.

"I spend my whole life being told that it's my fault Lavender killed herself so I just keep on going back. I keep on showing up in her flat and trying to stop her. I've saved her life five times already and I always know that I'll eventually get there on that last day and it won't do any good. I show up at the twins shop year after year for decades and I still have to watch myself get tortured. I show up at Lavender Brown's flat year after year and revive her from poisonings, replenish her blood when she slashes her wrists, clear the air when she tries to gas herself and the whole time I know it's all for nothing Hermione. I do nothing to save her in the end but I keep going back.

"You told her..." I was going to tell him what I had overheard that day.

_...that's the girl I like!_

"...I saw you letting yourself in and out of her place over and over again."

"Yes Hermione," Ron said with a little annoyance, "I let myself in because I knew she was going to hurt herself but I let myself back out again too. I always left again. I left by time travel or by the front bloody door don't you see?"

I suddenly felt shaky.

"But," I felt just as confused as I had done the day I had asked Ron to leave, "you would... You were always hugging her."

"What was I supposed to do Hermione?" he said as he leapt up from the bed and began pacing in annoyance, "She'd just tried to kill herself for the umpteenth time. I'm supposed to talk a knife out of her hand and then wave cheery-o and piss off, how would that help her stay alive another day?"

I tried to stop myself believing him. I could see it in his eyes though he was so sincere. I felt like throwing the bedroom window open and screaming into the street. This couldn't be true. I couldn't have really broken Ron's heart for nothing. I wouldn't have just thrown away what we had because of a misunderstanding. No this is the older, cleverer Ron. This is the Ron who cheats on me. This is the Ron I hate.

"No matter what I think of her or you think of her or anybody else thinks of her she didn't deserve to die like that," Ron's eyes were growing red as he spoke.

I shook my head. What had I done?

"You never...?" I barely managed to say before clasping my hand to my mouth with a sob that lodged itself in my throat.

"I never, ever, _ever_ need anybody but you Hermione."

"Oh Godric!" I said with a shaky breath.

I had just ruined everything I had with the love of my life. He told me the truth all along and I just threw it back in his face and now... Harry thought he was going to start drinking again and Ginny said he was in pain and I'd seen for myself that he wasn't looking after himself properly. I had hurt him and he hadn't done anything wrong. I had hurt him and he _never_ did anything to deserve it.

"I was there last week when she threatened to drug me or kill herself. I was there the week before that when she was making a noose, a _noose_ Hermione!" Ron said as he sank back down onto the corner of the bed and dropped his head in his hands, "I'll be there again next week to see her do something else or try to convince me that I really do love her after all and I don't know when it'll stop."

I crawled across the bed and held him tightly. He turned into my embrace and we hugged silently for a couple of minutes before he spoke again.

"This whole mess ruins so many lives Hermione and you've got the opportunity to let it go now. She's still alive for me, she's never been dead, but it's over for you. You can let her be dead and move on. You can get married and become a mother and grow old disgracefully but I'm just stuck in this bloody loop with Lavender until she eventually kills herself for me too."

He pulled back from me and looked me in the eye.

"I've been waiting over twenty years for her to die."

I always thought that those moments in films when a hysterical woman gets slapped around the face by a sensible strong man was a load of old tosh but this whole conversation had been like a cold hard slap in the face for me. My hysterical gibberish had been knocked clean out of my head and I saw myself for the absolute raving fool I was. I leaned forward and kissed the wise old Ron before me and he gave me a sad little smile.

"So you're off now then are you?" he said.

"What?" I frowned with a smile I couldn't suppress. It was as if a heavy burden had been removed from me and I was now as light as a feather.

"You're going to go and find me and bring me back home now I suppose," he chuckled.

I was, he was right; I was going to do exactly that.

"Yes," I laughed as I nodded nervously, "I don't know where to look though, I don't know where you went."

He cupped my face in his hand and kissed my forehead before whispering into my ear with that wonderful hot breath of his.

"You find me at Bill's."

I was running before I knew it, calling back to the Ron in the bedroom as I grabbed a handful of floo powder.

"Thank you Ron, help yourself to something to eat, and I'll see you..."

"I'm gone by the time you come home!" I hear him laughing from the bedroom but I am already engulfed in the green flames and toppling out of the fireplace in Bill and Fleur's living room.

I felt myself shaking with nerves and fear and excitement. I wondered if he was angry with me. I wondered if he could forgive me and if he did how long it would take for him to do so if he did? I wondered where the hell he was.

"Ron?" I yelled.

I heard a frantic shushing coming from the hallway just outside the open door to the living room and Ron appeared cradling baby Cam in his arms.

"I've only just got him off to sleep you... Hermione?" Ron froze and stared at me.

I was shaking so much now that I felt as if I was about to spontaneously combust. Both my hands were balled up into tight fists, my fingernails cutting into my palms, and my knuckles white. I didn't know what to say or if it was possible for me to say it without waking the baby. All I could do was stare at him and vibrate with all of my repressed emotions.

Ron's shoulders sagged he gave a deep sigh before carrying the baby past me and over to a tiny cradle beside the window.

"Listen if you've come to have a go at me then let me put Cam down first. Fleur'll kill me if I disappear while I'm holding him."

An anxious smile broke across my face as he set the baby down with his back to me and I took three steps toward him so quickly I wondered whether I had stayed still and the room had shifted around me in order to bring us together even faster. Ron covered Cam with a blanket and turned around to take what he thought I was about to throw at him, more anger and punishment and blame for the whole Lavender situation, and as soon as I saw him parting his lips to express his shock at seeing me practically nose-to-nose with him I threw my arms around his neck and closed my mouth over his with a deep passionate kiss.

His body was rigid for a moment before he put his hand upon the back of my head and began to kiss me back. We kissed in front of the sleeping Cam's cradle for what felt like an age before my sudden need to beg for forgiveness hit me and I broke out connection without moving further than a centimetre away from him as I spoke.

"I've been such an idiot Ron, I'm so sorry I treated you like that," I planted a kiss on his lips before continuing, "I'm so sorry I hurt you," I kissed him again, "I knew," and another kiss, "I knew you would never do that but my stupid brain took over and I should have listened to my gut instinct," I kissed him again, lingering a little this time, "I knew you were telling the truth."

I began to cry suddenly and buried my face into his neck.

"It's ok babe," he said to me soothingly as he rubbed my back.

"No it's not!" I growled into his chest, trying my best not to wake the baby with my exclamations of guilt, "I can't believe I did that to you. I'm sorry Ron; I don't know how you can ever forgive me for this. I've hurt you so much."

Ron lifted my chin and forced me to look him in the eyes.

"It's ok," he smiled, "I went to you, that time I travelled when you told me to go, and you explained to me that you'd be back and all I had to do was wait for you."

I felt my shakiness coming back and my knees turning to jelly.

"You've been waiting for me all this time?" I said with a barely audible squeak.

"Of course I waited," he laughed, "I would have waited a year if that was how long it took, or more. Although I'm glad I didn't have to. This has been really hard."

I pulled his head toward mine again and I kissed him and wondered what on earth had ever made me doubt him. Oh yes, the evidence of my own eyes, I must remember to blind myself as soon as I get Ron back home. Blind myself and stop thinking. I will never think ever again. All I'll do from now on is feel.

"I've missed you so much," I breathed as I squeezed him tightly, "I'm so sorry..."

"That's it for the apologies okay?" Ron said as he hugged me back and I felt him kissing the top of my hair.

I nodded against his chest before looking up at him and letting out a short combination of a laugh and a sob.

"Can you come home now?" I asked him.

He pushed my hair back from my face and kissed me on the tip of my nose.

"Well I'm babysitting right now," he said with an apologetic frown.

"Not anymore you're not," Bill's voice sounded from the doorway where he stood with his arm around Fleur who was wiping tears from her eyes, "Get out of my house little brother and take your girlfriend with you."

Bill was smiling at Ron as the four of us stared at each other and seemed to be mirroring each other's poses.

"Fiancée Bill," I corrected as I squeezed Ron a little tighter, "I am his fiancée not his girlfriend, if he'll still have me?"

I looked up at him and saw that he was looking at my left hand at the ring I still wore on my finger.

"Well you still have the ring I see. It'd be a shame to waste it."

Bill laughed and Fleur cried into his shoulder. I looked at the ring myself now. I had never taken it off, not since Ron had slid it onto my finger himself. I suppose there was always that part of me that knew I was still his and he mine. I took his hand and led him over to the fireplace.

"Come on, we've got some catching up to do."

* * *

_A/N Sorry the updates aren't as regular as they normally are, I've been fighting eye strain this past week and have taken to wearing sunglasses while writing! If any of you have any tips on how to get my vision back I'd be most appreciative._

_In other Shari news my first ever fanfic, Eternal Sunshine of the Scourgified Mind, has been nominated for a fan fiction award. I wonder if this will mean I can demand a trailer during my next fic now that I've made it? I can hear myself now, "You call this Champagne? Bring he the head of the craft services!". Anyway it's called the Phoenix feather and they've got a Yahoo site,(that http thing thatcomes at the beginning of every link)groups(dot) yahoo(dot) com / group / phoenix(underscore) feather/ (Sorry but this site won't let me type links etc.)_

_Right so I'm just off to buy a tiara and a fancy gown before donning my sunglasses and writing my big finale, I think I've got plenty of you a little worried about the outcome by now. _

_Shari_


	30. Not Waving But Drowning

**Not Waving But Drowning**

_14th August 2005 and 26th April 2008 (Ron is 25, Hermione is 25)_

RON: The twins were late for the Weasley family ritual of Sunday dinner at the Burrow and I had been sent to give them a kick up the arse.

"She said she'll send you a howler if you don't show up within five minutes," I warned them as they grumbled about not being able to have a day of peace to themselves.

While George stomped into his bedroom to get out of his 'slumming' clothes as he called them Fred pulled on a pair of shoes and scowled at me.

"What?" I said defensively, "I'm just the messenger, don't give me the look."

Fred straightened up and began to tuck in his shirt without a word just as George stormed back in with an inaudible grumble and cast a similar glare of annoyance my way.

"Listen I'll just go and let you deal with the howler if you want shall I?" I said as I stomped back over to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of floo powder.

I was already wound-up after Hermione held me up all morning looking for her misplaced necklace. We had taken so long to find the thing that I hadn't had any time left to go running and had been a bit jumpy all afternoon. Ginny had got so sick on watching my leg bounce up and down as I sat beside her on the sofa that she had slammed her hand down onto my knee and yelled at me to sit still or go running and get rid of my pent-up energy before she put a leg locker curse on me to keep me from fidgeting. I think my restlessness had been the main reason for me volunteering to go and light a fire beneath the twins when mum asked.

"What is it with you today?" George frowned with annoyance.

I turned back from the fireplace, the handful of floo powder seeping through my fingers as I did, and saw that the twins were both almost ready to go.

"I'm just sick of you two and your 'shoot the messenger' crap every Sunday that's all. If you don't want to come for dinner then bite the bullet and tell mum rather than take it out on the rest of us."

Fred looked a little ashamed of himself and glanced at George before speaking.

"It's not that we don't want to see mum and the rest of the family little bro," he began as he lowered his head, "It's just that we work all the rest of the week and Sunday's the only chance we get to do our own thing."

I was about to huff and tell them that we all had jobs and our own things but we all made the effort when I saw Fred and George exchange that same look between them again and thought I understood now.

"I'm sure mum wouldn't mind if you...brought somebody," I smiled.

I felt a wave of smugness hit me as George's face flushed and Fred looked down at his feet.

"So what's her name then George?" I chuckled.

"Shut up Ronniekins and I don't want you saying a word to mum about...whatever you're thinking ok?" George snapped at me as he pointed his finger at me and drew himself up to his full height.

"Oh come on, after the hard time you gave me when I first bought Hermione home as a girlfriend and not just a friend you seriously expect me to keep this quiet." my face lit up as a thought hit me, "Oh Ginny's going to love this!"

"Don't you dare tell Ginny!" Fred warned with wide eyes.

"You too?" I exclaimed with amusement.

"I have a reason," Fred said defensively, "my...friend is a muggle and she doesn't know about the magical world or me being a wizard yet so she can't come even if I wanted to inflict mum on her."

Inflict? I admit that mum's a bit keen to get the twins settled down but I don't think she'd force a marriage on them on simply hearing the news of either of them having a girlfriend.

"And I'm only having a bit of fun, I don't want to go introducing anyone to the family any time soon Ron," George said with a shudder.

"So keep your trap shut got it?" Fred said sternly.

"Got it?" George said, as he looked something of a mirror image of Fred in his identical pose.

"How much is it worth?" I smirked.

Just as Fred was about yell his outrage at me the owl with the howler zoomed in through the window and the red envelope began to fizz and smoke. While the twins stepped away from it and towards me at the fireplace, hoping to escape it before it went off, I felt myself sway and forced my eyes closed.

"Ron are you okay?" Fred said as I felt him holding me up just as my legs began to buckle under me and I reached for the mantle to try and support myself.

"The sparks," I tried to explain before concentrating on staying in the twins' living room and not dropping into a seizure.

"Oh shite," George hissed as I felt myself being spun around to face the other way to the howler, which I could now hear was crackling somewhere behind me, "stay with us Ron, she'll go loopy if you miss dinner because of us."

He rubbed my back as he spoke and I opened my eyes and nodded to let him know I was trying. I couldn't focus on anything but the blur of colourful shapes and patterns in front of me and I leaned against the mantle with both hands and took a deep breath.

"You're not going Ron," Fred said reassuringly, "you'd have gone by now if it was a seizure don't worry. You've shaken it off."

My head was spinning now and I still couldn't blink the room into focus but Fred was right, I was still here, I was still holding on to the mantle and feeling the hand on my back. I nodded again and forced my eyes closed to try and stop the dizziness.

"Did you go running this morning?" George asked me and I shook my head while exhaling and trying to stand again without the support, "Well that's all this is isn't it?"

Fred was saying something in agreement but the howler was whistling now and on the verge of going off at any second and drowned him out.

"D'you think we can floo with him like this?" George was shouting, "we need to get him out of here before that bloody thing goes off."

"Can't risk it, he's barely standing George. What if we put him to sleep and see if that sees it off?" Fred was shouting back.

I was about to try to say something when I felt my body arch and a dry gag constrict my throat. The nausea was coming, I couldn't stop it, and I was going into a full-blown episode. I opened my eyes and saw the flickering flames of the fireplace dancing before my blurred vision in an orange haze and my legs were finally lost beneath me. Fred yelled and they both tried to grab me to keep me from falling but I melted through their arms and found myself enveloped in cold, dark water.

Just as I realised that I was under water my body rejected my breakfast and I vomited. I couldn't stop the instinct to inhale immediately afterwards and drew icy water into both my lungs before beginning to choke and trying to force myself to hold my breath. It was impossible though as the panic had set in and my mouth opened to gasp for the air I needed. It never came.

Bright white spots appeared before my eyes and I struggled to try and see which way was up so I could kick for the surface but all I could see was blackness on all sides. I didn't know up from down and I couldn't see which direction to swim. Just as my body tried to expel the water from my lungs with a series of coughs that only pulled more water inside me something brushed against my arm and I thought I could make out the murky silhouette of a mer-person before me. I reached out to try and get their attention, to silently plead with them to pull me up to the surface, but all I saw was the figure waving back and swimming off into the blackness at speed.

My head felt light and my eyelids heavy as my body arched in one final desperate cough before I passed out altogether.

HERMIONE: Molly was furious. Now she was missing three sons for Sunday dinner and her howler didn't seem to have encouraged them to hurry at all. She slammed the palms of both hands upon the table, causing Arthur to jump with fright and all of her children to cower away from her rage, before pushing her chair back and getting to her feet with a huff. She stormed over to the family clock with her livid red cheeks clashing incredibly with her hair and growled to herself.

"They had better be travelling right now or I'll..." she froze and all the colour drained from her face within a second.

Arthur was on his feet with the same speed as Bill and Harry and they all ran to the clock to see what she had seen.

"M-Mortal peril!" Molly said with such a tiny voice I hadn't been sure I had even heard it.

Harry swallowed and looked at me with wide eyes.

"It's Ron," I was on my feet and tossing a handful of floo powder into the fireplace before any of them could reach me.

The green flames dispersed and I hurled myself out of the fireplace and into the twins' living room where I saw the two of them on their knees and in the process of trying to revive a very pale and wet Ron where he lay on their floor.

Fred was pumping hard upon his chest and counting aloud before George pinched his nose and blew into Ron's mouth. This was it, I thought, this was the drowning Ron had warned us all about. He had come back to us dead and he needed us to bring him back.

The fireplace blazed green again and Bill ran out at the same moment to door burst open and Harry ran in with Ginny, they had obviously just apparated into the street and broken in through the shop rather than join the queue for floo powder.

"...two, three, four..." Fred was counting just as Bill dropped to his knees and flicked his wand at Ron's chest.

"_Spiritus..."_ he began to say shakily.

"That won't work on a dead body!" Charlie yelled as he appeared behind Harry and Ginny at the door, obviously having followed their example and gone the apparition way.

While Bill froze in mid incantation and looked at Charlie in horror at what he had just called their baby brother. Charlie seemed to go green in the face but set his jaw in a way that told everybody that he knew what he was talking about. Just as the fire threw out Weasley after Weasley, all crowding into the twin's living room and watching in stunned silence while Fred and George continued breathing for their little brother.

"... five, breathe!" Fred said as he watched George take a deep breath and blow it into Ron's still cold body.

"Come on," Percy was mumbling from somewhere over my shoulder, "come on Ron."

"One, two, three..." Fred began again through gritted teeth.

"Oh Arthur he's going blue, surely there's spells we should be trying," Molly was gibbering through her tears, "there's more we can do then just using the muggle methods. We should be..."

"Mum no!" Charlie shouted across the room at her, "nothing will work until the twin's get him started again now don't panic."

Charlie didn't really seem to be the embodiment of calm himself but I knew he was right. Ron had warned us himself that it had to be C.P.R. and nothing magical was going to be able to save him. I suddenly felt helpless and useless as I watched the twins working with silent determination.

I saw that same expression on their faces when I had come to them that evening after Ron's visit and told them what he had said. I told them that he would come to them one day soon from the bottom of Hogwarts lake, drowned, and they had to learn the muggle revival method in order to save him. They were signed up for a class first thing the following morning. They had been waiting for this and dreading it every day since. Whenever Ron had a seizure at their place they always tried to get him to shake it off in the hopes that he wouldn't go to the lake at all. They hoped that this moment would never come. It was always going to come though. Ron had seen it, it was done, and all we could do was let the twins fulfil their part of the story.

"Here," Harry said as he dropped to his knees beside Fred, "let me take over, you're getting tired."

"No! Four, five, breathe!" Fred growled as he pumped away at Ron's chest.

"Listen Fred that might not be a bad idea," Percy began to say as George filled Ron's lungs once again with air from his own.

"I said no!" Fred snapped before resuming the compressions once again.

"He said we have to do it," George said with a eerie detached quality to his voice, "and we're doing it."

Bill and Charlie glanced at each other before each moving toward a twin with caution.

"And you've done what he asked you both, you've done it brilliantly," Charlie said calmly, "but don't you think Ron could use some more help?"

"We could just give you a little break," Bill began as he set his hands upon Fred's shoulders.

"Five, breathe!" Fred bellowed at his twin, clearly enraged at this interference, "Did any of you learn this?"

George breathed for Ron once again and Fred continued to rant while maintaining the rhythmic pumping upon his brother's chest.

"Did you?" I snarled, "No you didn't now leave us be so we can bring him back!"

George nodded as he turned his head to listen for Ron's breath upon his earlobe.

"We're going to bring him back. He said we bring him back and that's what we're going to do now shut up all of you."

"Breathe!" Fred ordered both George and Ron.

George forced another lungful of air into his little brother. I watched Ron's chest rise and fall and then stay perfectly still until Fred began pumping again. This was going on for far too long for comfort. I took his icy blue hand and stared at his purple lips as George parted them to breathe for him yet again and I knew that he would need more than just Fred and George once he was back with us.

"Ben," I said before I really noticed I was speaking aloud, "He'll need Ben when he comes back, somebody needs to get his healer here quickly."

Harry leapt over Bill and Charlie, who were still on their knees at Ron's side and offering to do the deed in unison, and threw the entire bowl of floo powder into the flames before yelling the name of Healer Wanless' private residence and disappearing into the bright green flames. I turned back to Ron and squeezed his fingers, which were like icicles. I brought his hand up to my lips and kissed it before breathing onto his fingers and rubbing them roughly to try and warm them up.

"Breathe!" Fred nodded to George before seeing the same rise and fall of the chest they had been watching for an eternity now and not a breath more and he began to lose his steely determination and give way to panic, "Breathe you bastard! Come on Ron. You've got to do some of the work too you lazy git c'mon!"

George was listening for Ron's breathing again and shook his head with a whimper.

"What's taking so long?" he said with a crack in his already quiet voice.

Fred pumped forcefully on Ron's ribcage and spoke each word as if it was the count of five.

"He's...not...going...any...where!"

Just as George was going to lean over to give Ron another breath a small fountain of water shot upwards from Ron's mouth and he began to choke and splutter. The twin's froze and stared at each other, mouths agape, while Charlie quickly rolled Ron onto his side and slapped his back roughly.

"Go on Ron, get it all out kid," Charlie seemed to be forcing more water out from Ron's lungs as he coughed and gasped at my feet.

Everybody sprung into action at once now. Molly grabbed a nearby tablecloth and set about wrapping it around Ron's shivering white body while Arthur pulled off his jacket and pulled it securely around his son's shoulders. Percy hit Ron several times with the _spiritus_ charm to help him with his breathing and Fleur took Ron's hand from mine and sent something through him that warmed his icy fingers and toes in a second. As Ron's skin began to pink up again Bill sent a couple of strengthening spells at him while Ginny flicked her wand and conjured a bowl which she held at Ron's head before uttering the spell to induce regurgitation and caught even more of the murky water as it was expelled from Ron's body.

I looked across at the twins as they sat back on their haunches in dumb shock and stared back at me. I forced a smile onto my face and mouthed a silent thank you to the two of them. George could only manage a single nod before staring back down at his, still violently coughing little brother, and Fred sprung to his feet and ran to the bathroom with his hand to his mouth. Just as the bathroom door slammed and the sounds of non-magically induced vomiting echoed around the flat the fireplace was a mass of green flames again and Harry ran out with Ben at his side.

"Alright everybody move aside for me please," Ron's healer said with confident authority, "Ron are you with me mate?" Ben said as he snapped his fingers before Ron's eyes, "Do you remember our plan for this day?"

Ron's back arched and he heaved another gurgling cough into the carpet as he nodded and I looked from him to Ben anxiously and bit my lip.

"Good man," Ben smiled, "Now remember, you'll probably pass out but don't let that worry you okay? Right this is going to feel really uncomfortable and I'm sorry but you're lungs are nowhere near clear yet so whatever you do don't try to breathe in alright?"

Without waiting for even a small nod from Ron Ben aimed his wand at Ron's chest.

"_Concavo intus! Aguamenti abduco!"_

A spurt of water shot out of Ron's mouth and his body went limp. I almost bit through my lip as his eyes fell closed and Ben began to try and lift Ron up.

"I've got to get him to St Mungo's," he grimaced. Ben wasn't exactly muscular.

"Here let me," Charlie said as he lifted his unconscious baby brother with ease and took a step toward the fireplace.

"Oh shit, no floo powder left," Harry suddenly gasped as he smacked himself on the forehead.

"We've got more, we've got plenty," George said as he scrambled to his feet and ran to the kitchen cupboard to fetch it.

Fred emerged from the bathroom wiping his mouth and Molly began to cry as she planted a kiss on Ron's limp hand.

"We'll follow you there Ronnie, don't you worry, I'm here."

"He's going to be fine mum," Charlie smiled as he got a more comfortable hold on Ron before stepping into the fireplace with Ron and George threw a handful of powder at his feet while he yelled out, "St Mungo's!"

Ben followed on right away and Fleur grabbed Bill and hugged him tightly.

"Well at least it's happened now," Arthur said bracingly as he slapped Percy on the back and tried to smile, "Can't get much worse than that can it?"

None of us said a word. We all knew it was bound to get much worse in ways we couldn't possibly imagine. I felt a tiny hand curl around three of my fingers and looked down to see the grinning angelic face of little Cam. I hadn't even known he had come with Fleur until now.

"Don't worry Auntie Hermy, Uncle Ron never stays dead for very long."


	31. This Little Life

**This Little Life**

_30th November 2018 (Hermione is 39)_

HERMIONE: I couldn't allow myself to believe that I was really going to have this baby.

I knew this was the one I would carry to term. I knew that my daughter was to come at the seventh attempt, causing her to carry the time epilepsy gene like her father, and that after my six heartbreaking miscarriages previously I would finally get the baby I had been yearning for all these years. This baby was going to stay with me until she was due to arrive and it was set in the future that Ron had seen for us. The fate we could never fight or change was now on our side and nothing could take this baby away from me.

I knew all those things but it still didn't keep me from worrying. What else could I do?

I needed to buy something to wear, none of my clothes fitting me any more, but I just couldn't convince myself to go shopping for maternity stuff or anything for the baby. I couldn't help but feel as if I would jinx it for us. Ron had been trying to decorate the spare room and turn it into a nursery for his girl. Ron and Aimez were already so close now, they had spent so much time together as Ron had travelled to her and she had travelled to him and more often than not they would both travel to the same place together and meet up.

Aimez. It's a beautiful name and I'm not supposed to know it. Ron has resolutely refused to tell anybody her name so I can 'come up with it myself' when she is born. I heard him talking in his sleep about his little girl and sometimes he talks to her. I love listening to their adventures in his subconscious. He knows how I hate to feel as if my future selves have made all my decisions for me and the Hermione of the present has no say in things whatsoever. He thinks he's overstepped the mark a bit by even confirming to me that this baby will be a girl but how could I not have already guessed that? I met her. I met my little one when I was nineteen years old and she had travelled to our street to give Ron his lost wand and get a kiss and a cuddle from her daddy because her own was in the hospital for some reason.

Her daddy was always going to be in the hospital for some reason. I was so scared that my daughter was going to have to live a similarly hazardous lifestyle.

"Come on Hermione," Percy's wife Pippa said as she dragged me into Madame Malkin's shop by force, "I know that you've got a thing about coming back in here after that first time but I promise you okay? Ron won't show up in the street dead or dying, you will not lose the baby the second you lay your hands upon a maternity robe and there's nothing wrong with Molly knitting booties for her new granddaughter."

I sighed and gave up my protestations. I looked down to the three year old Ally and her four-year-old brother Bobby and smiled at them. They call me Auntsie My-nee just to make them even cuter than they looked. It was as if Percy had the sweetness gene as well as the intelligence. Alistair looked just like Percy, the curly hair and sparsely freckled skin, while Bobby looked alarmingly like Ron used to when he was that age. It was as if my husband had been cloned really. Percy and the twins loved this fact and kept playing tricks on poor Molly involving elaborate fibs about the timelines getting tangled up and a five year old Ron travelling to the Burrow. They would present a naked Bobby to her and she wouldn't know if they were serious or not. Well at least at first. The very first time they had done it Ally hadn't been born yet and Molly spent a whole weekend looking after her little 'Ronnie' while Percy and Pippa had a romantic anniversary dinner all to themselves.

"Well what do you think then?" I asked them as Bobby wiped his runny nose on his sleeve and Ally giggled and hid his face in his mother's skirt.

"I think mummy's bossy!" Bobby beamed.

I laughed at the expression on Pippa's face.

"Y'know what Bobby? I think so too."

Bobby took my hand and pulled me over to some pretty lemon coloured robes and I looked over my shoulder and smiled a resigned smile at my sister-in-law as she picked Ally up and followed us along. Bobby was named after a bedtime story Percy had once heard Ron telling his infant self when he travelled to the Burrow one Christmas in such a foul mood that not even Fleur and her baby mojo could get him to settle. Ron had taken himself from his mother to give her a break and soon we all noticed that the crying and screaming had stopped. Percy had said that he looked in on Ron in his old bedroom and saw him pacing up and down in front of the bedroom window rocking the baby Ron in his arms and mumbling a story about a little black buck called Bobby to himself. Percy hadn't stayed around to hear the story as he didn't want to disturb the peaceful scene but something about seeing his little brother like that had really stuck with him and when his first son was born he named him Bobby.

I had seen plenty over the years to let me know that Ron was a fantastic father. I had seen him with Cam as he grew from a newborn into a handsome and admirable young man and I had watched him with all the nephews and nieces as they came into the family as well as his younger selves. He had this knack with them. Molly had once commented that Ron had an old soul and the children could pick up on that but Arthur once confided in me that Ron was gifted with the most wonderful way of seeing life and everything in it as if he was seeing it for the first time. A miracle really considering that by the time he was twenty Ron had pretty much seen it all. I knew what his dad meant though. I once caught him watching me getting dressed in the morning and he had the strangest smile on his face.

_"What are you grinning at?"_

_"Nothing, I'm just looking at you."_

_"Why? I'm a mess. My hair's all over the place and I'm getting over the flu, I'm a state."_

_"You're never a state. You're just a new kind of beautiful every day and I like seeing it happen that's all."_

A new kind of beautiful, he really meant it too. Every day he would look at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. I picked up little Bobby and carried him over to the mirror to see how I looked holding a young Weasley. Bobby waved at his reflection before sticking out his tongue and chuckling with that oh-so-Ron-like laugh of his.

"Auntsie My-nee?" he said as he looked at my reflection with his wide blue eyes.

"What is it Bobby?" I smiled.

"I'm glad you and Uncle Ron are getting your baby now."

I felt a lump in my throat and I nodded at him and gave him a hug.

"So am I," was about all I could manage in response.

* * *

_23rd February 2019 (Ron is 38 and Hermione is 39)_

RON: I rub small circles at the base of Hermione'sspine with my fingertips and she moans as the back pain is finally lessenes just a little bit. She's really big now and still working full time at the lab. When I'm done with her back I'm moving on to her feet. She stands up all day and comes home almost in tears because of all her aches and her hormones. She won't take maternity leave until the very last minute though. It's her independent streak I think.

"Can we stay right here, 'till the end of time, 'till the earth stops turning?" I'm singing to the baby nowadays.

Hermione is obsessed with talking to her bump and I always felt weird about it but one morning last month she woke up to find me resting my head lightly upon her bump and humming to it. She told me that if I sang to the baby she would never tell the twins or Harry and Ginny on me.

"Gonna love you 'till the seas run dry. I've found the one I've waited for."

I never forgot the grief Percy got for his singing in the shower of a morning. Weasley men don't sing. It's an unwritten law. We don't sing, not because we can't, but because we come from a long line of piss takers who will destroy us if we show our soft side. Even Hermione didn't know I could sing until she made me sing to her stomach. I think she's lying about it soothing the baby and easing her discomfort just to get me to do it while she's awake to hear it.

"All this time I've loved you and never known your face. All this time I've missed you and searched this human race."

She sighs and I move down to begin massaging her right foot.

"Here is true peace. Here my heart knows calm."

Aimez always makes me sing this to her. Hermione even names our future retirement home by the sea after it. Funnily enough I learned the song from Hermione, though she says that she heard it first from me, I think this song is one of our time loops that has no beginning and no end. I kind of like it that way.

"Safe in your soul, bathed in your sighs. Could we stay right here 'till the end of time, 'till the earth stops turning? Wanna love you 'till the seas run dry. I've found the one I've waited for."

"What's it called again?" Hermione groans as I manipulate her foot with firm strokes that cause her to close her eyes and relax for the first time since she got back home.

"It's called Gorecki, I keep telling you," I mumble as I lower her right foot and set about easing the left.

"Gorecki," she sighs to herself, "Oh yeah."

I see that Hermione's ankles have swollen again and resolve to hide all her shoes once she's gone to sleep so she won't be able to go to work tomorrow. Knowing Hermione she'd go in barefoot. I hum the tune to myself as I massage the ball of her left foot with my thumb and hear her sigh again.

"We don't name the baby Gorecki do we?" she murmurs.

I laugh at this, she's always fishing for the name of the baby but I know she just wants to refuse to call her what she's destined to be called just to defy time. Hermione's determined to defy time. She thinks that if she can prove fate wrong just once then my time jumps will stop for good, some kind of space time relativity whatchamacallit that she rambled on about with Percy over dinner a year or so ago. If I say I saw a green cow in Diagon Alley on the twenty second of July 2016 then she reckons that by keeping me from ever seeing said green cow in that location on that day then time has been changed and the jumps are null and void and have to stop.

I don't follow that logic myself, there was a half hour explanation she gave and Percy was fascinated but all I heard was 'blah blah blah continuum'. Although Percy was interested in Hermione's theory he didn't buy it at all. He was saying something about proving time wrong while I was in the wrong time leading me to be erased from it completely. Hermione told him he was about as wrong as he could be and I got up to go for a walk with a confused looking Charlie who had never been able to get his head around the simplest concepts of my time travel let alone all this intelligent stuff between the two boffins.

I don't want her to know the baby's name just so she can change it and stick two fingers up in time's face. I like the name Aimez, it suits my girl, it's beautiful and so is she. Besides I think it's got to be Hermione's choice of name anyway because I would never be able to come up with something as perfect and original as that.

"Ron?" Hermione sighed with contentment as I snapped out of my own daydream state and set her foot back down.

"Mmm?"

"Why does she never travel back to see me?"

I wondered if I had just zoned out of a conversation and moved closer to meet Hermione's eyes.

"I'm not following you."

"Our daughter," Hermione said with a sad smile as she stroked my hair, "you see her all the time don't you? She comes to you everywhere at every age and you already know all about her. I was just wondering why she never came to me. You come to me more than you come to anybody else. I see more of you than you do yourself."

I laughed, that was a very strange thing for her to say, strange but true. I had spent more time with Hermione than I ever had done with my past and future selves while travelling. I didn't know why. I didn't know how any of this worked.

"Well I think it might be because I'm gone a lot in her future," I said as I cleared my throat, I hoped Hermione didn't want to go into the whole post 2024 debate again, "Whenever I see her she seems to have been pining for me or something. I think she seeks me out."

"Like you're her gravity?" Hermione smiled.

"Something like that I guess."

I lean over her and kiss her on the lips before getting up to go and make her something to eat that satisfies both her cravings and my need not to be sick. Hermione has this weird thing for strawberries covered in vinegar at the moment. At least the eating yeast extract right out of the jar phase has ended.

"Ron?" she called after me.

"Yup?" I smile as I spin around at the kitchen door and walk back over to her to see what she needs now.

She reaches up for me and pulls me down for a proper kiss. Her fingers snake into my hair and I try to remember that she's six months pregnant and not to lie on top of her like I usually do. As we part again she is smiling up at me and brushing her soft hand against my face.

"I love you."

I blinked and shook my head.

"Tell me something I don't know."

She laughs and slaps me on the arm and I give her a quick peck on the cheek before heading back to the kitchen.

* * *

_10th April 2019 (Ron is 39, Hermione is 39)_

HERMIONE: I'm being lied to in order to protect me in my vulnerable state and I don't like it one little bit.

Harry's told me that Ron is travelling. Ron's been gone for five days now and none of the family will leave me alone for a second. Reassuring me that he'll be back soon and trying to keep me company until he is. Fred and George are constantly trying to amuse me and Percy is acting like my father with the level of bossiness in the name of keeping me relaxed. Ginny keeps changing the subject to baby stuff whenever I confide with her that I can tell they are all keeping something from me.

I even flooed St Mungo's and demanded to speak to Ben after convincing myself that Ron had been hurt by that bastard Seamus and it was being kept from me to protect the baby from my worry.

Worrying isn't something caused by news of Ron, it is caused by there being no news of Ron whatsoever. I went to the Burrow in the guise of needing to talk to Molly about remedies for my swollen ankles and surreptitiously glanced at the family clock. Ron's hand wasn't on 'time-travelling', the hand Arthur had attached some years back, and it wasn't on 'hospital' so Ben hadn't been lying to me. It was swinging violently between 'lost' and 'in mortal peril'.

I maintained my ruse and sat chatting to Molly about breast-feeding for an hour before telling her I was tired and wanted to go back to the Hornet's Nest. Nobody knew that I now knew the truth. Ron wasn't travelling at all. Ron was missing. Six months pregnant or not I was going to find my bloody husband and hex the living crap out of whomever it was who had taken him away from me.

RON: I think it's been five days. I'm not sure. He knows he can't kill me. Time doesn't let him kill me, I've seen it and there's nothing he can do to change that. He can try but all he'll do is hurt me bad enough to hospitalise me for a couple of months. He's learnt that lesson now.

I know how he's doing it of course. I heard about my drugging in France. I can't travel if I'm doped up enough, not unless time dictates that a seizure is due, and I haven't been able to induce one since he got me here. It's the water and the food but I stopped eating and drinking two days ago and I've got a clearer head now. Well as clear as a head can get when you've starved yourself for two days in between beatings and curses.

The door to the abandoned medieval dungeon creaks open. I hate that creak, I know that creak so well, and it can only mean one thing.

"_Plaga pulpa!"_ Seamus yells and a flash hits me and throws me against the stone wall like ten invisible punches to the chest.

All the air leaves me and I slide down the wall of the dungeon coughing and gasping while his footsteps break into a run and he swings a kick into the side of my face. I feel one of my molars loosen and my ear begins to ring.

"What no fight back this time Weasley?" Seamus said as he swung another kick into my stomach, "No funny little comment or pathetic attempt to apologise for what you did to Lavender?"

I try to stand but he punches me on the other side of my face and I see nothing for a moment and hear a high whistle inside my head. When I come back to myself I can't open my eye and am sprawled out on the floor on my back. I've given up trying to reason with him. There's no reason left there now. He's not the same person I knew and when he comes in to vent all the years of pain he thinks I've caused he's detached from the whole thing entirely. It's as if he's following a set routine he planned outside the dungeon. He doesn't even seem to enjoy exacting his revenge. He just has to do it.

"Answer me!" he yelled as he drew his wand and hit me with another curse, "_Obtineo doleo!"_

Something held me in place, like a body bind only agonisingly painful, and I tried to let myself black out rather than scream. I held my breath and hoped it would be quick.

"Not that little trick again," Seamus said as he kicked me in the gut again, making me cough and gasp for air, "I want you to feel this. I want you to feel what I feel you bastard."

It was as if dull rusty needles were dragging al over my skin and tearing the flesh open while my insides twisted and pushed against my bones. He wasn't going to let me pass out until he was done. I gritted my teeth and let out a growl as the curse finally lifted and I was a sweating, panting mess on the floor at his feet. My whole body was trembling and I couldn't even lift my hand to wipe the blood from my face.

Seamus put his wand away to haul me up and drag me into an iron chair in the corner. He dumped me into it and took out his wand again to summon the drugged water from the corner of the dungeon. It flew into his hand and just as I was opening my mouth to protest he poured the liquid down my throat and clamped his hand over my mouth so I couldn't spit it back out. Then he remembered my little trick the last time and pinched my nose too. I fought it for a few seconds until my body convulsed and I swallowed.

Seamus smiled and flicked his wand at me as he stepped back from the chair.

"_Captivas!_"

Rusty ropes of iron secured me to the chair by my wrists and ankles as I felt the mood stabiliser hitting me and my head fell forward. Seamus lifted my chin and forced me to look at him with my good eye.

"I may not be able to kill you Weasley but I can have a hell of a good time waiting for your forty fourth birthday to come around."

He held my head in position as he aimed his punch. The last thing I remember is the taste of blood in my mouth.

HERMIONE: I had performed a locator spell on my wedding ring. My ring and Ron's were both made from the same nugget of gold and forged by a goblin craftsman to be magically linked for all eternity. It had seemed like a romantic thing at the time but now I knew that the magical link would help me find Ron in a way the team of Aurors would never have been able to.

I had apparated to Angmering and seen a shimmering cloak of magical power somewhere along the coastline, a faltering concealment charm that made me confident that this was where I would find Ron.

Why would I do this alone? Why would I risk my unborn child and my husband's life in keeping my discovery of Ron's location to myself rather then telling Harry or Eldridge and Langley? Why was I about to face Seamus Finnegan all on my own?

I was doing it because I am sick and tired of that pathetic little man taking his rejection out on my family. I am sick of watching Ron recovering in hospital beds. I am sick of hearing about Harry and his friends being attacked by Death Eaters because Seamus has sold out their positions simply because the whole department have to pay for him not being loved the way he wanted to be when he was nineteen years old.

This was a grown man and not a nineteen-year-old boy.

This was a grown man who was messing with my husband and keeping him from me when I want him at my side singing to my stomach and massaging my back.

This was a grown man I had had just about enough of and I was going to kick his arse, pregnant or not.

I was a Weasley mother now and we don't let anybody hurt our family.

_"Absisto!"_ I screamed as I blew the concealment charm away and the door to what looked like an underground dungeon that had fallen onto the beach with the coastal erosion over the centuries.

I flicked my wand at myself and conjured a bubble shield around me as I walked into the dungeon and aimed my wand at the familiar but hollowed out face of Seamus Finnegan.

"_Contineo!_" I yelled as I threw a containment spell at him but he dove to one side and tried to hit me with a restrainment hex but it bounced off my shield, "_Compescor!"_

I hit him that time and he was thrust into the wall and held there by an invisible force. I knew that Ron was in the room but I couldn't hear him. That meant he was hurt and I felt my rage at this swelling up inside of me. I didn't tear my eyes from Seamus though. I could look for Ron when I was done with him.

"You'd better prey that you've not done too much damage Seamus," I said with simmering anger rising to the surface, "because I'm in no mood to be gentle with you right now."

The spell on him wore off and he lifted his wand and sent a spell at me that shattered the bubble shield.

"_Perfringo!"_ he roared triumphantly and the shield fell away from me as I aimed my wand at his chest and we began to circle each other like animals about to attack, "I don't want to have to hurt you Hermione, not in your state, but don't think that I won't do it."

"The only state you have to worry about is the one I'm going to leave you in. _Everbero indentiem!"_

A series of brutal blows struck Seamus and I threw up another shield before me as he aimed his counter-attacks erratically as he struggled to shake of the magical beating I was giving him.

_"Oppugno!_" he yelled and the blows ceased and my new shield evaporated, "_Impedio!"_

Strands of fine wire-like thread shot forth from Seamus' wand and began to entangle their way around my body. I had just enough movement in my arm to flick my wand at the bindings and free myself.

"_Epedio!"_ the strands of magical wire crumbled into rust and I aimed my wand at Seamus with my barely contained fury, "_Adficto!"_

"_Protego!"_ Seamus defended against my attack while running across the dungeon into a corner.

I followed him with my wand while shooting attack spells at him the whole time. Every one of them bounced off his shield until I eventually penetrated it and Seamus' eyes flashed with what he appeared to think was his winning move in this battle and he stepped behind an ugly metal chair and aimed his wand at me from his perfect cover from attack. Ron.

I tried not to look at my husband as he sat slumped in the iron chair, bound by metal ropes that cut into his bruised flesh, and glared at Seamus' smug face instead.

"Not so sure of your aim now are you Hermione?" he said as one hand reached around the back of the chair to grab a handful of Ron's hair and pull his head up to reveal an almost unrecognisable face, swollen and bloody, while his wand hand moved around the other side and pointed into Ron's throat, "Want to hear him scream do ya?"

I gripped my wand and maintained my aim. I wasn't shaking, I wasn't flinching, and I wasn't going to back down.

"Get your hands off of him," I snarled.

"Five days I've been working him over and he still won't scream for me but I'm sure that when he sees you here with me he'll change his tune, let's see shall we?"

"_Servo! Solvo!"_ I bellowed as I aimed right for Ron's chest.

The protection spell hit a fraction of a second before the release spell and Seamus flinched as the bindings loosened slightly and his grip on Ron's hair was gone as his fingers were prized open.

"_Crucio!"_ Seamus yelled as he pointed his wand at Ron's limp body but my protection spell seemed to have interfered with his aim enough to send the spell bouncing off the wall and sending debris crashing down between us.

We were both a little concerned about this but kept our wands on each other all the same.

"He's dead anyway soon enough, you do know that right?" Seamus spat as he backed away into the darkness of the dust cloud and away from Ron.

"I know as much as you do and that's not a lot," I said with determination, "and I'm pretty sure I'm understanding how to beat time at its own game actually. The future is mine to control and my husband is in my future for a very long time."

I suddenly heard Ron's voice in my head from all those years ago.

_"I never leave you...I've seen it."_

"Denial won't keep your man alive y'know?" Seamus's voice said from the dust cloud as it began to settle.

I was about to reply when I heard multiple cracks outside and wondered if Seamus was expecting anyone. From the look on his face he wasn't and he did his old favourite escape routine and summoned a portkey into his waiting hand, transporting him to where ever that cruel little man was hiding these days.

I watched him go before running, as fast as my pregnancy would allow me, to Ron. I heard voices and running footsteps but I didn't tear my attention away from fighting to free Ron from the rusty ropes that I hadn't managed to loosen enough with my spell.

"Hermione, Godric it's true!" Harry said fearfully as he led the Aurors into the dungeon and ran to join me, "I didn't believe it when Percy told me what he thought you'd done, he found the stuff you used to trace Ron," as Harry spoke Ron's name he looked up at his unconscious friend and seemed both outraged and terrified as he lifted his head and saw the state of his face, "and he came to me and said he thought you'd gone to take on Seamus yourself but I...I never thought..."

"Out of the way," Cavendish said as he stormed over and gripped Ron's bonds and pulled at them with his powerful fingers.

"It's really strong magic Lee, I can't do anything more than loosen them," I said as I watched him pulling even harder while Harry simply gaped at him.

"I know that," he said through gritted teeth, "that's why I'm not using a wand Mrs Weasley."

As he spoke my name the metal rope came free from the chair and Cavendish seemed to shake with the sense of victory as he moved over to Ron's other wrist.

"I'll get his healer here," Auror Davis called as she turned and ran out of the cave to disapparate.

I started treating as many of Ron's injuries as I was able to while Cavendish miraculously broke through the second of the iron ropes and cracked his knuckles before dropping to his knees to free Ron's legs.

"Godric what did that bastard do to him Hermione?" Harry shuddered as he set about healing Ron's bloodied face.

"It sounds like whatever he was trying to do he couldn't do it," I said as I remembered Seamus' claim that Ron wouldn't scream for him.

Just as Ben was being led into the dungeon by Davis Cavendish broke another binding and almost growled with a feral pride. I wondered if Cavendish was part giant like Hagrid before moving aside to let Ben get to work on Ron while Harry helped me up and guided me away to check me out for any signs of injury.

"I'm fine Harry I swear, he never had a chance to hit me with anything," I informed him.

"Oh don't I believe it," Harry had said in awe, "I've seen your Ron induced rage when you went all canary mad and that was against somebody you loved so I don't dare imagine what you did to Seamus for hurting him."

It was as Harry said those words that I realised what had just happened. Ron had been captured and tortured for five days and I had just fought an unstable would-be-murderer while heavily pregnant with our child. I could have lost everything. I watched as Cavendish freed Ron completely and lifted him out of the chair at Ben's instruction.

"We've got to get him back to St Mungo's right now," the healer was saying.

I don't know what came over me, I was shaking now as Harry took my hand to guide me after the departing Cavendish, and Harry let out an amazed sigh and shook his head.

"I always said it was dangerous to incur the wrath of a Weasley woman."

RON: My throat was so dry that even breathing hurt. I tried to swallow but all I achieved was an unpleasant wheezing noise.

"Ron?" I heard her before I felt her hand on my face and opened my eyes a crack to look at her concerned face.

I tried to swallow again so I would be able to say something to her but my whole mouth was dry and I felt as if my tongue was stuck to my teeth. I managed to make a raw squeaking sound and then I saw movement at my other side and Ben was lowering a cup to my lips and letting a very small trickle of water fall into my mouth.

"Hey there," he smiled as I managed to swallow for real this time, "Nice to have you back."

I looked back at Hermione and felt my saliva glands coming back to life and moistening my mouth so I could speak again.

"You ok?" I whispered hoarsely.

"I'm fine," she smiled and stroked my hair softly, "how do you feel?"

"Dented."

I heard Ben laugh at this and he mumbled something to Hermione about getting me to drink some more before he went outside to face my family. Hermione put the cup to my lips and let me take a little water again before leaning forward and kissing me softly.

"You're going to have to stay here for a week or two Ben tells me," she said with a sad smile, I lifted my heavy arm and took her hand while she continued, "who's going to sing to my stomach every night?"

"Maybe I'll come and visit you from the future," I said before my eyes felt heavy again.

She smiled and lay her head beside mine as I drifted off to sleep while wondering how the Aurors managed to find me and get me out of there.

* * *

_1st May 2019 (Ron is 39, Hermione is 39)_

HERMIONE: I lie in bed and watch Ron toss and turn for a moment before drawing his knees up to his chest and shuddering. The flinching has lessened every day since he came home from St Mungo's but now he's getting restless and jerking away from whatever curses or punches Seamus is giving him in his nightmares. He only came off the dreamless sleep potion two nights ago and now I am woken in the morning by the sound of him suddenly gasping and yelping in his sleep. Ben tells me it should pass soon enough. I hope so.

I wriggle to one side of the bed to try and haul myself out of it but pause at the sound of Ron's rapid breathing while he scrunches up his face and decide that enough is enough.

_"Evvervate!"_ I say as I swish my wand at him and his eyes open wide with shock.

I smile down at him reassuringly as he sits up in bed panting heavily. I rub his back and shush him before he starts apologising for waking me up again.

"I thought you wanted to go for a run before work that's all," I lied, "and if you want to go more than one lap of the park then you'd better get going soon."

Ron nodded and blew air out as if he was sending all his anxiety out with that one exhalation.

"Yeah I do, thanks babe, I'll get ready now."

RON: I only realised I was on my fifth lap of the park when the cramp hit me and I forced myself to take a break against a birch tree. I think I'm trying to run out all my frustration over those five days of inactivity. Well if you can call being a human punching bag inactivity I suppose.

The mood suppressants have all left my system and now I'm off the dreamless sleep potion too so I think I'm trying to detoxify or something. I drank my usual bucket sized jug of water before I came out and now I think I've run it all out of me because I'm thirsty again. I begin to stretch out my legs so they don't seize up on me completely and another runner who I see every morning passes by as mimes the words 'are you okay?' and I nod and they wave to me before going on their way.

It's funny how the regulars always notice when I've been away. It's as if something's out of whack with the universe if they don't pass me first thing in the morning. They sometimes get a little confused when they see me running with myself but they probably just think I've got an identical twin or something. The runner who just passed me once got chatting while we warmed down at the gates and suggested I run something called the London Marathon but I hear it's televised and can't risk having a seizure on national television, it would be a hard one to explain! I shake out my arms and legs and set off at a very gentle trot back to the flat.

"I really needed that," I panted as I swung the front door closed behind me and undressed all the way over to the shower, leaving my trainers and clothing strewn along the floor behind me as I went, "I'll pick it up when I come out babe. Don't you go bending over alright?"

I didn't hear anything in response but I had just set the shower running. I stood under the icy cold water and let it cool me down. It may have only been the first day of May but it was warm out and I was baking. I began to wash away all the sweaty grime I had created and thought about what might have happened if Hermione hadn't come for me. Then I wondered what could have happened to Hermione if she hadn't been so focused and on the ball with rage at Seamus. I shivered and not just because of the cold water that was streaming down my back.

Harry kept muttering over and over when I was recovering in hospital that he never knew she had it in her. He knew she was vengeful when pushed and he knew she was a force to be reckoned with as far as defending loved ones went but he never realised just how focused she could be to hurt another human being. My mother said that it was like a bird protecting her nest or something. I knew what she meant; I'd seen a blackbird stand its ground against a cat in one of the trees behind the Burrow when I was little. The bird wouldn't leave her hatchlings to save her own skin. I had started pelting stones at the cat but it killed the brave mother bird and Ginny had seen me, apparently persecuting a defenceless cat and thrown a rock at the back of my head. When I told her what I'd been doing she was so upset that she climbed the tree and took the nest of hatchlings down to mother them herself.

They all died anyway.

That's the thing with a mother's love it sometimes isn't enough. Harry's mother had saved him but only by taking herself out of his life forever. Hermione had faced an unstable would-be murderer and come away without a single scratch on her. I sometimes think she's blessed. Then other times I think she's cursed. I think I've cursed her.

I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around me to go into the kitchen where I drink the entire contents of the milk bottle that is set upon the kitchen counter in one gulp. Then I open the fridge and pull out another bottle of ice-cold milk and down that too. I don't know what's got into me since I got out of hospital I really don't. It's as if I can do everything faster harder and without even thinking about it. Ben reckons it's because I've got better at zoning out outside influences and channelling all my internal crap into physical energy. He tells me he thinks that's what I was doing during those five days. He thinks that's why I was able to hold on for so long.

I put the empty milk bottle beside the first and realised that I still haven't seen Hermione. I wonder if she went back to bed once I had gone. I look in the bedroom for her but she's not around. I call out her name and nothing. I suddenly begin to panic. Where the hell did she go? She didn't go out in the park to look for me did she?

I pull back the curtain to scan the park for a very pregnant woman when the fireplace bursts with green flames and Bill stumbles out of it.

"Bill I can't find..." I begin but he's grinning at me.

"I get to return that favour you did me back when Cam was born," he beamed, "and oh yeah, what was it you said to me then? That's it, where the bloody hell have you been ya tosser your wife's popping a sprog!"

"What?" I said as I suddenly felt all the blood drain out of my face.

"She went into labour during your second lap of the park and she was waving to you like mad but you were in a world of your own so she flooed to St Mungo's and sent out word for the rest of us to find you in the park. We looked around your whole route and you weren't there."

I was under that bloody tree dealing with my cramp!

"Oh shit she's gonna kill me," I said as I ran and pulled on my stinky running gear from the floor.

"She will if you show up smelling like that," Bill reeled away from me and fanned his face with his hand, "childbirth takes a while Ron, I think she'll allow you an extra two minutes to put something on that isn't quite so toxic."

I ran into the bedroom and started to dress while a pounding on the front door turned out to be Harry who was wheezing and telling Bill that he couldn't find me anywhere.

I had my t-shirt on back to front and inside out and was barely into my jeans when I hopped out of the bedroom to let him know I was on my way when I tripped over my discarded trainer and landed with a thump on the living room floor. Bill found this quite amusing.

"I have never," Harry grumbled as he pulled me up to my feet and began dragging me over to the fireplace, "ever," he tossed a handful of powder into the flames, "known anybody quite so accident prone as you!"

He shoved me in and yelled the appropriate fireplace I needed to get to Hermione in St Mungo's and I was swallowed up in the flames, seeing Bill's amused shake of the head and Harry's rolling eyes before they zoomed away from me.

I was about to meet Aimez for the very first time.

HERMIONE: I have never felt so tired in all my life. I glance over at Ron as he gets his broken fingers healed by a medi witch and he smiled over at me and shakes his head. I didn't mean to break them; I only wanted to hold his hand that was all.

I look down at Aimez and feel the most incredible warm head rush and wonder if babies are supposed to know you the second they see you. The first moment she was placed upon my chest and she opened those big brown eyes she looked at me and seemed to recognise me immediately. She knows me just as well as Ron knows that little time traveller in the future. I don't need time epilepsy to have a pre-conceived bond with my daughter, it's already there, we know each other and we love each other and I've never felt so happy in my whole life.

"So Mrs Weasley," the mid witch smiled at me as Ron returned to my side, flexing his newly healed fingers, "do we have a name for the new arrival yet?"

I looked at Ron and he just grinned and folded his arms across his chest. He wasn't going to tell me her name. He didn't need to tell me her name; I already knew it just like I already knew her.

"Aimez," I smiled and Ron beamed, "her names is Aimez."

The mid witch smiled and peered over at the tiny little red head.

"What a beautiful name."

Ron nodded.

"It's French for cherish y'know?" he said while winking at me.

"Oh lovely, well I'll tell your families, they're all anxious to know about her."

The mid witch left the three of us alone and I reached out and took Ron's hand. He pretended to be frightened of me hurting him again but I just pulled him towards me and leaned in to kiss him.

"Who really named her?" I asked him with a smile.

He shrugged at me and looked down at his daughter.

"I think she named herself."

* * *

_A/N Okay, I have a question._

_Do we like arse-kicking six months pregnant Hermione or do we like arse-kicking six months pregnant Hermione?_

_Well what would you do if someone took away your personal masseuse when your back was aching?_


	32. Daddy's Girl

**Daddy's Girl**

_17th August 2036 (Ron is 26, Hermione is 56, Aimez is 17)_

RON: I have appeared at the Ministry of Magic Apparition testing centre in the buff. This is a new one, I've never come back here before, and I shoulder the nearest door open to find something to wear.

Because of all the splinching and concentrated disapparating and apparating going on there are strict wards to stop anybody disapparating out of the building and this room doesn't seem to have a fireplace so I can't go home or the Burrow. I find a cloak and drape it around my shoulders while I search for a wand or any kind of footwear around but this seems to be an abandoned office and I realise that I'll have to go somewhere else to find clothing.

I open the door and peer out, a couple of apparition testers are walking down the corridor and I duck back inside and hold my breath. Their footsteps fade away into nothing and I look out at the corridor again and creep out to try some of the other doors nearby. Every one of them seems to be locked.

Once again I try to shoulder my way through one of them but it's too noisy and I can't be sure how many other ministry officials are around. I curse under my breath and my bare feet slap along the smooth cool floor as I reach the end of the corridor and peer around the corner to see if anybody's around.

"Gotcha!"

I jump and spin around to see a highly amused young woman laughing at me and leaning against the wall outside one of the testing rooms.

"Oh Godric you almost gave me a heart attack," I said as I clutched my chest and tip toed back across the hall to kiss my daughter on the cheek, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm taking my test," she nodded over her shoulder with a smile.

"You're never seventeen!" I exclaim.

She nodded and pulled me into her testing room, which is thankfully empty.

"I just passed," she grinned at me.

"Was this your first time?" I asked her and she nodded again, I felt myself swelling with pride, "That's my girl."

I gave her a hug and she giggled before beginning to go into one of her Hermione-like rambles.

"I was so nervous that I was going to mess it up or that I would wind myself up so much that I travelled but I ran three miles today just to be on the safe side and I think it did the trick because I was so calm and cool about it and when I came into the room and the examiner told me where he wanted me to be I just did it without thinking and it was perfect and then I came back again in exactly the same spot and I had both eyebrows and everything!"

I rubbed my head and laughed.

"I never thought that sentence was going to end!"

She laughed again and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly.

"Oh I'm so glad your here!" she threw her arms around me and hugged me again, "You always seem to know when I want you around and you're just the best dad _ever!_"

I laughed and twirled her around like I used to when she was a little girl, well like I had done last Tuesday actually, and she squealed with delight before jumping out of my arms and clapping her hands together enthusiastically.

"Oh we've got to owl mum and get her to meet us for a celebration dinner!"

"Yeah sounds cool," I nodded, "I may need more clothes than just this though. Unless times change in the future and it's no longer frowned upon to wear nothing but a cloak in public."

She laughed at me and gave me a playful shove.

"Dad you're such a prat! Wait here and I'll see what I can nick you okay?"

As she opened the door and checked to see if the coast was clear I whispered after her.

"Don't get caught!"

"I never do, I'm a master criminal me, Uncle Fred taught me how to pick locks."

Just as I was about to warn my little girl never to listen to her Uncle Fred she rushed out and closed the door behind her.

HERMIONE: I have been sculpting a sundial in the garden with a yin and yang theme. I can't do anything without some kind of time theme or karma theme, I suppose Ron's never out of my thoughts even when he is out of my time. I take a break to rub some lotion into my hands so they don't dry out and crack when an owl swoops down and lands on top of the stone plinth I have been shaping for most of the year.

"Shoo, don't you poop on my sundial before it's even finished!" I say as I wave my hands but the owl insists I take it's message before changing positions to hop up onto the bird feeder where it helps itself to something to eat.

I open the note and smile as I read Aimez's handwriting. She has passed her test first time around, I knew she would, and she's very pleased with herself for not panicking or going travelling. I wander into the kitchen to pick up my glass of water and take a sip before reading on. Going out to celebrate, can I come and meet them...them?

The glass smashes as it slips from my hand when I read the last scrawl, the over excited addition to her original note.

_Dad's here and we'll be at Eastbrook waiting for you, come quick!_

I disapparated right then and there into the ladies toilets at the Eastbrook public house and ran out of the cubicle and into the bar to scan the place for the two familiar heads of red hair but I couldn't make them out anywhere. I ran out to see if they were sitting outside, Aimez was still a year too young to be in the place after all, but I still couldn't see them and I hoped they hadn't gone off to another time together. I hoped Ron had waited for me.

"Mum!" I heard Aimez calling out from the end of the street.

I spun around and saw the two of them running along towards the pub to greet me. My heart stuck in my throat and I began to run to them.

"You got here faster then we did," Aimez was saying with amazement but she stopped when she saw the look on my face as I saw Ron melt out of his clothes and into nothing.

"No not again!" I whimpered as I stamped my foot.

Aimez turned around to see that her father had gone and let out a sigh of disappointment before looking back at me and giving me a hug.

"He'll come to you again mum I promise. He'll stay longer next time I'm sure."

I started to cry on her shoulder. She was always so strong for me at times like this. I knew I was being selfish and that if I had the choice I would always choose for Ron to be there throughout Aimez's life rather than my own but it just hurt so much when we had near misses like that. I could see him this time. I could see him for only a second or two but at least he was there and I got the chance to see those eyes and that smile again after all this time.

"It's okay Aimez, he'll come again and I'll catch up with him then."

I kissed her on the cheek and saw her face alight with happiness and couldn't help but smile.

"So tell me all about it then."

"Well I did it perfectly first time and the examiner said I was flawless. Dad was so chuffed for me and then he got all grumpy because you'd told me all about the eyebrow thing and he started swearing about the examiner he had," she was running off at the mouth in that way her father would at times, "then he got all 'dad' on me and told himself off for swearing in front of me and _then..."_

I smiled and linked my arm with hers as we walked. I could listen to her all day. I probably would.

* * *

_3rd September 2030 (Ron is 41, Aimez is 11)_

RON: I had just had to resort to the thing I hate to have to do the most. I had just mugged somebody for their shoes. Ordinarily I'd nick a pair, well borrow I like to think of it really, but there are no shoes for feet as big as mine around here anywhere so what was I supposed to do?

I walked along the roadside and hoped I would come across a road sign sometime soon to tell me where I was when I heard a rustling in the bushes and flinched.

"Hello?" I called out with suspicion.

"Daddy!" Aimez yelled as she jumped to her feet and ran at me without a stitch on her.

I held up my hands in front of my face and hoped that there was nobody else around to see this middle aged man with a naked child hugging him at the roadside.

"Aim please you'll get me arrested!"

She was laughing at me as she pulled me back into the bushes with her, my hand still covering my eyes causing me to stumble over the uneven ground as I went.

"Dad you used to give me baths and change my nappies and stuff, you've seen me naked before..."

"Yeah...well...it's appropriate when you're a baby," I stammered as I shuffled my jacket off and held it out to her with my eyes still securely covered, "you're old enough to know better now."

She huffed and I took a chance and peered through my fingers to see that she was halfway decent now. It was a good job that jacket was quite long on her.

"I've seen you naked plenty of times dad," she said with an arched eyebrow.

"Yeah well who _hasn't _seen me naked," I snorted and finally let myself relax in her company, "So we both travelled here did we, or are you coming back from somewhere?"

"No this is my trip too," she said breezily, "any idea when we are?"

I shook my head and looked around the countryside.

"No clue where either, this look familiar to you Aim?"

She shook her head and we both rolled our eyes at out strange little lives.

"How old are you then?" I asked her.

"Eleven," she said.

"Oh cool, you going to Hogwarts yet?" I said with interest at what house she had been sorted into.

Her face turned suddenly sullen and she made a growling noise that I couldn't quite translate into the English language.

"Sorry Aim, I didn't quite catch that," I said in my best 'dad' tone.

"I was just going," she mumbled, "I travelled from the Hogwarts Express and that's fine with me because I don't want to go to bloody school."

"Language!" I snapped at her before suddenly realising what she'd just said, "Hold on I told your bloody mother you weren't to take the train to Hogwarts."

Aimez looked up at me defiantly.

"I know you did."

"So why did she put you on it? Does she not recall how many times I ended up on those sodding train tracks? I was hit by the bloody train once!" I exclaimed as I tried to fathom what could have possessed Hermione to be so careless with our daughter.

"I know that too," Aimez said with a very Percy-like snootiness and she brushed some lint off the sleeve of her oversized jacket, "we had quite an argument about it as a matter of fact."

I stared at her and blinked before folding my arms and raising my eyebrows for her to explain herself to me.

"I will not restrict the way I live my life because of my condition," she said matter-of-factly.

"Who have you been talking to?" I asked her with an annoyed frown.

"I have not been influenced by anybody father," she said nonchalantly.

"Oh you're calling me father now? It's Percy isn't it? I'm going to kill him!" I growled as I hit out at an invisible version of my brother in my mind's eye.

"Uncle Percy did not tell me what to think but he did suggest something that I think mum should have listened to rather than shipping me off to Hogwarts with all my cousins."

When did she start talking like this I asked myself? When I meet her as a teenager she's just like the twins and when she's a little girl she's like me and Ginny used to be. Does she become every member of the family over time? I hoped that she didn't go through a dragon-loving phase during her 'Charlie' period.

"I'm not following any of this Aimez."

"Uncle Percy knew I didn't want to go to Hogwarts so he suggested home schooling me and I said I wanted to do that and mum said I couldn't because I wouldn't get a full education."

I sat down on the grass with Aimez and examined her face for a minute before asking her the big question.

"Why don't you want to go to Hogwarts Aim?"

She looked down at her bare feet and pouted before answering me.

"Because every time you go to Hogwarts you fall out of the sky on the Quiddich pitch or drown in the lake and I don't want you to get hurt coming to see me."

I shuffled over to her and put my arm around her, her arms curled around me and hugged me tightly in return.

"I don't get hurt every time I go Hogwarts," I tried to explain, "sometimes I play chess with McGonagall or have tea with Hagrid. Most times I show up in the common room or the dormitory and scare the hell out of a load of first years."

She laughed at this before burrowing her face into the side of my chest.

"But you come to me all the time and always on my birthday and special times when I need you and I don't want you to get hurt because you come to me at Hogwarts. What if that Willow tree beats you up again?"

"Aimez," I began as I pulled her up onto my lap and she looked me in the eye, "if I'm going to get hurt then I'm going to get hurt. It'll never be your fault for drawing me into a dangerous place. I've been stabbed with an umbrella in Uncle Bill's living room remember?"

She chuckled; it was one of her favourite stories.

"Does that mean you never want to go to Uncle Bill's house in case I get hurt again?"

She shook her head.

"I fell down the stairs at Fred and George's place too. That means you can't ever go to the joke shop I'm afraid," I said as I shook my head and sucked air in through my teeth.

"Okay dad you've made your point."

"No I don't think I have," I said, on something of a parenting roll, "because you forget that I can go back to the Burrow on any number of 'Weasley curry' nights and the smell of those farts are toxic I'm telling you girl. So there will be no more visits to Grandma and Granddad for you I'm afraid because I won't have you drawing me into that cloud of poison just to say Merry Christmas to you."

She was laughing hard now and hit me on the arm.

"Okay I said!"

"So you're going to Hogwarts then?" I asked her with a smug smile.

"Well not as soon as I get back because, well y'know?" she shrugged guiltily.

"Yes I do know, I know exactly what you mean Aimez, you mean that when you go back the train would be miles away and you will be starkers on the bloody train tracks!"

She grinned at me mischievously.

"Maybe I'll bump into ya dad!"

* * *

_14th October 1999 (Ron is 19, Aimez is 23)_

RON: I was sitting in the Marigold tearooms reading the Prophet and waiting for Harry when a very pretty young woman with long wavy red hair pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.

"Um hello," I said nervously on seeing her knowing smile, "I'm actually waiting for somebody so..."

"Oh I know I won't stay long," she said as she waved for the waitress to come to our table, "I just thought I'd have tea with you until your friend arrives."

I rewound what I had just said to her in my own head while the woman spoke politely to the waitress.

"I didn't tell you I was waiting for a friend."

"No you didn't," she said, not really seeming to care much about that, "So tell me all about your day."

I blinked.

"My...My what?"

"Your day," she smiled, "I want to hear all your news."

I frowned at her and looked at the smattering of freckles across the cheekbones, the wickedly curling corners of the lips and the vivid red hair, before smiling myself.

"Are you...?" I began to ask if she was a Weasley but she couldn't be, I knew all of my cousins on dad's side and none of them had big brown eyes like that. In fact they were more like Hermione's eyes than anybody in our family, "Are you a Prewit?"

She narrowed her eyes and bit her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Distantly yes."

That explained it.

"Oh right," I said as I let myself relax and held out my hand to her, "I'm Ron, Molly's youngest boy."

She shook my hand and seemed to find something very funny.

"I know, I'm Aimez, I'm..." she hesitated, "My name's Aimez."

Why didn't she tell me whose daughter she was I wondered? Then I thought that maybe she was illegitimate. I had heard stories about Uncle Bilius that were probably the reason Percy's hair was curly. I decided not to push it.

"So are you visiting or do you live in London?" I asked as Aimez's tea arrived and I folded the newspaper and put it away.

"No I live at Walton-on-the-Naze, right by the pier."

"Seaside, nice," I nodded as I took a sip of my tea, "I grew up in the middle of Devon so it was a bit of a journey to get to the beach."

She seemed inexcusably happy again and I began to notice some familiar little quirks she had that made me slightly uncomfortable.

"Oh but the countryside is so lovely there. I'd live there myself but then I think my grandma would be round pestering me every three seconds or so, she likes to fuss."

"Sounds like my..." I suddenly got it and my face fell, "...no way!"

She grinned at me and nodded.

"But...but..." I said, not knowing if I wanted to ask her questions or run out of the tearoom screaming.

"Calm down dad you'll give yourself a seizure!" she giggled.

"Don't call me that!" I yelped far too loudly for everybody in the tearoom's liking, "How old are you anyway?"

"Twenty three."

It felt as if both my eyeballs were about to pop out of my skull and roll across the table like marbles.

"You can't be older than me!" I said, still rather too noisy in these surroundings and she shushed me while stifling a laugh.

"I'm a time epileptic just like you, I can be older than you pretty easily dad."

"No no no no no no no no...No!" I was waggling my finger and trying to stop myself from saying 'no' quite so often, "Don't...No I'm not dad...just no!"

"I can't call you Ron," she said a little uncomfortably, "it's not right."

"Well just," I was trying to keep myself as coherent as possible, "try not to call me anything then."

"I'll try," she shrugged and looked a little sad about this.

I leaned across the table and took her hand, which also felt incredibly wrong.

"Look I'm sorry it's just...this is new."

She smiled at me again.

"That's okay, there always had to be a first time didn't there. Although this isn't it."

I blinked before looking back up at her and smiling with the recognition of that dirty little face I had been trying to place for a whole year now.

"You're the little girl who found my wand in the street aren't you?"

She nodded.

"Wow!" I said as I remembered her then and looked at her now, "Good job you did of growing up there."

"Thanks."

We both sat across from each other and just stared and smiled for what must have been two minutes solid before she pulled her chair around the table to sit a little closer to me and rest her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand.

"So tell me what you want for the future then," she said with a dreamy smile.

"What?"

"Tell me what you want out of life, you've still got it all ahead of you and I want to know what you want to do and see and places you want to go and everything. What is it you wish for?"

I had never really thought about that. I didn't bother with plans or dreams, not since I started seeing way into my own future, it all seemed out of my control and mapped out for me before hand.

"Nobody's ever asked me that before," I said as I mirrored her posture and leaned against the table on my elbow.

"Well I'm asking you now. I really want to know da...Ron. I want to know what you want out of life."

I thought about this for so long that my tea went cold. She never once huffed or rolled her eyes; there were no comments for me to hurry up and no interruptions of my train of thought. She just let me think about it for as long as I needed to.

"I want to get it right," I said in the end.

I wondered if that was a stupid answer. It probably was. Here was my beautiful twenty three year old daughter tracking me down to get the meaning of life as a time traveller and that was all I could offer her. She probably wanted something all profound and deep. Well she should have gone to find Hermione for that. I sat back and threw her a look of apology for being so unimpressive.

"You do it exactly right," she nodded and her eyes filled up with tears before she blinked them away quickly and smiled at me as if she hadn't been overcome with emotion at all.

I pulled my chair in a little closer to her and asked her the same question in a low voice.

"I want to make you proud of me," was her answer.

I felt my own eyes burn at this and I couldn't believe that she actually looked up to me for approval.

"I can't imagine you ever being a disappointment," I said with a constricted throat.

She looked happy enough at that and I suddenly had a billion and a half questions that I wanted to ask her all at once. I wanted to know if she liked the summer or the winter, was she a morning person or a night owl, did she read books or play sports or both, what stupid embarrassing sound did she make when tickled, how did she eat a Jaffa Cake, did she hate travelling or love it, did she hate me for passing on that bloody epilepsy gene or did she forgive me? I wanted to know everything about her and she seemed to want to know everything about me.

"...so Hermione has got the most hideous dress on," I was saying while Aimez cried with laughter while I described Harry and Ginny's wedding day to her, "this thing could've taken over the world I'm telling ya!"

"I've seen the pictures," she said while wiping her eyes and shaking from the inside at the thought of her mother being devoured by an uncontrollable bridesmaid dress.

"The pictures do not do it justice!" I exclaim as we both crumple into a whole new type of hysteria.

"But that one picture of everybody together and the dress is blocking out most of Hagrid's body and you can barely see mum inside it at all..." Aimez was clutching her side and could hardly get the words out now, "...and the look on your face!"

Aimez lost herself totally now and I rocked back in my chair and laughed so hard that my head began to hurt.

"They could see her from space!" I just about managed to squeak out, causing Aimez to begin whimpering about the cramp she was developing in her sides.

We had almost managed to compose ourselves again when the bell above the door to the tea room tinkled and Harry arrived to see me and an older woman with bright red faces in fits of giggles with two ignored cups of cold tea beside us.

"What was Ginny thinking?" I was just cackling as I saw Harry staring at me with a sceptical look on his face, "Oh Harry!" I pointed over Aimez's shoulder, "It's Harry look."

"He doesn't know me," she said under her breath while struggling not to laugh.

"Oh right," I said before glancing back up at Harry who was handing his cloak to the waitress and wandering over to our table with great suspicion, "Harry this is..." I wondered if I should introduce her at all.

"I'm leaving actually," she said as she got to her feet and smiled as she extended her hand for me to shake it again.

I stood up and pulled her into a hug.

"It's been really nice seeing you," I said as we broke apart.

"You too, and I'll tell my mum I bumped into Molly's boy in Diagon Alley when I get home. She'll like that. I'll be seeing you again, now we know what each other looks like we can look out for one another."

"Definitely," I nodded.

Aimez was about to pay for her un drunk tea but I told her I'd get it and she waved and left the tea room with a tinkle of the little bell above the door. I let out a deep sigh and sat back down again. That was definitely one of the strangest experiences of my life, and for my life that's saying a lot.

"So who was the pretty lady you were chatting up Mr I'm-Engaged-Now?" Harry said with a smug look on his face.

I scowled at him and shook my head; he could be such a prat sometimes.

"Harry did you see her," I said, speaking to him as if he was a simpleton, "she's one of my cousins you sick pervert. Or should I call you Mr I'm-Married-Now?"

"Oh," Harry said blankly.

As we watched her passing the window with one final wave I couldn't resist winding Harry up for leering at my daughter.

"You know what _is_ interesting though?" I said, "She looks just like me," I leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and so did Harry, "and _you _found her attractive."

Harry's face fell and he went as white as a Hogwarts ghost.

"Oh Godric I _did!"_


	33. Wedding Jitters

**Wedding Jitters**

_5th November 2003 (Ron is 23 and 36, Hermione is 24)_

RON: I have to be sure. I have to do everything I can think of to do. I have to do this for Hermione. All she asks for is one day, just one, just one special day where I don't have to leave her and she doesn't have to take me to hospital or anything like that. All she wants is her one big day where she is the centre of attention. All she wants is her wedding day with a groom who actually turns up and sticks around long enough to marry her. Is that really too much to ask?

"Ron please slow down you're killing me," Harry gasped from some way behind me.

"Just two more laps Harry," I said as my feet pounded onwards.

"You said that three laps ago!"

I passed the bench where Fred and George were still recovering. I don't know what everybody's complaining about, I didn't ask any of them to come running with me. Harry seemed to have felt it was his duty to stick by me at all times in his duties as best man but really; was it necessary for all five of my brothers to come along too?

Percy hadn't even made it all the way round the first time and was just yelling at me to come back inside and get showered and changed every time I passed him at the park gates. Bill dropped out next; well he is getting on a bit now the poor old guy. He didn't appreciate me saying that to him as he pulled up on lap three with a stitch. The twins had started and stopped and re-started and stopped again over the course of my mini marathon and seemed to be trying to get their second, or maybe it was their third or fourth by this time, wind before rejoining Harry, Charlie and myself.

Charlie had managed to run every lap without stopping or slowing down and he still looked pretty strong now, he was doing better than Harry at least, but he was nowhere near as fast as me and I couldn't run any slower otherwise I'd risk getting a cramp so I just had to leave him trailing behind by about fifteen feet. Harry had speed and he had stamina from all the Auror training but he wasn't used to the daily regime of running every morning like I was so he was beginning to feel the pain now we were in mile eight and I still hadn't shown any signs of slowing down.

I saw one of my fellow regular park runners setting off and picked up my pace a little to catch him up, it was nice to have a little chat every now and then and he had fresh legs and was quite fast himself so I knew I could keep my own pace comfortably with him. I'd run with him on and off for almost a year now and we still hadn't learned each others names. That's the way it is really isn't it? Running isn't really a good way to socialise.

"Blimey you've got quite a team of pacemakers with you this morning!" he said as we passed Bill and Percy, the latter was tapping his watch and pointing up at the flat with pleading eyes.

I gave a breathless laugh and nodded over my shoulder at Harry and Charlie.

"There are two of them back there as well. I don't know why they're following me; it's not as if I owe them money!"

He laughed at this and we pounded onwards for two more minutes in silence before Harry eventually gave up and staggered over to a patch of grass and slumped down on to it.

"You've lost one!" he chuckled.

"Oh yeah," I sniggered and turned into lap number nine.

"What's with the entourage then? I've only ever seen you running with your brother before."

"They are my brothers," I panted, "except the one dying on the grass back there, he's my best man."

My running companion seemed to understand everything now.

"Ah," he said, his face breaking into a wide grin, "I get it now, trying to run your wedding jitters out of you eh?"

"Something like that," I shrugged.

"So they're all making sure you just keep running in circles and not for the hills never to be seen again?"

I laughed at this. Maybe they did think I was about to do a runner in the not quite so literal sense. Of course I wasn't thinking about that. I was doing this to keep myself around.

"I just get..." I tried to remember what I'd called it that time he had caught me fighting off a seizure last May in one of the flower beds, had I told him it was muggle epilepsy or something? Shit I couldn't remember, "...I've got a condition and I'd rather not spoil the day for everyone that's all."

"Oh right," he nodded, "so the running really works then does it? It keeps the seizures to a minimum."

Well I must have told him it was muggle epilepsy. I just nodded and hoped he didn't want to go into details. We ran on for three more minutes in silence. I wondered if I was ever going to tire. I was approaching lap ten and still didn't feel like stopping.

"Well I'm just doing the one mile today mate," my running partner said as he gestured back to the turning he was to take to jog back the way he had come, "good luck with today and don't wear yourself out too much, you've got to conserve some energy for the wedding night!"

I laughed.

"Well you've got a point there."

"And your brothers are looking a bit anxious that they won't get you ready in time too, speaking of which I don't see your twin anywhere," he frowned.

I looked across to the bench where Fred and George were about to attempt to rejoin me.

"The twins are over there," I nodded in their direction.

"No _your_ twin!"

"Oh him," I never really catch on when people call my other self my twin or my brother, no matter how often it happens I can't seem to get used to it, "he's travelling from...quite far, he won't be here until later."

He gave a nod to let me know he had understood and waved as he went off in the other direction as the path forked away to the left while I cornered to the right. I was still restless enough to want to go for another couple of laps but knew that running myself into the ground was no better than having a seizure at the church so I slowed my pace and fell back to let Charlie catch me up and slipped into a light jog with him.

"Worn yourself out at last have you?" Charlie panted heavily with a smile.

"Actually no but I've got to stop some time haven't I?"

Charlie shook his head and huffed.

"I can't believe you; you're like a bloody greyhound."

I slowed to a halt and bent over to rest my hands on my knees, Charlie did the same, and we grinned at each other through our heavy breaths. There were two loud cracks as Percy and Bill apparated to our spot just as I stood up straight and began to warm-down with Charlie. The two of us looked soaked through with sweat and Percy seemed to think the smell was quite bad as well as he was a little reluctant to come too close.

"Are you done now Ron?" Percy asked as he pushed his glasses up his nose and held out a bottle of water to me.

I downed it in about ten seconds and Charlie folded his arms across his chest and raised his eyebrows as he stared at me with a bemused smile on his face.

"Oh sorry, did you want some?" I blinked, remembering again why I don't have a regular running partner.

"Not a greyhound Ron, forget I said that, you're a camel!" Charlie said with a shake of the head.

The twins trotted up to us and watched as Bill refilled the bottle with a spell and Charlie took a couple of deep swigs before seeing me watching him and rolling his eyes and handing the bottle back to me to drain dry once again. Bill had to refill the bottle a total of five times before I felt satisfied enough to set back off to the flat for my shower. Harry plodded along the pathway behind us with heavy legs and unable to speak. Fred and George helped him along and the seven of us headed up to the flat.

HERMIONE: I asked Ginny to floo the flat to check on Ron. I can see it coming a mile away you see? He's so determined not to travel today that I can see him winding himself up into such an anxious state that he has a seizure right in the middle of saying 'I do' and leaving me at the alter with a very perplexed vicar to explain myself to.

Ginny came back, shaking her head and smirking. Nobody was there and when she had looked out the window she told me she had seen Ron running in that focused state he gets into while all the rest of the groomsmen were in various states of exhaustion all over the park.

I laughed and let Fleur finish styling my hair for me. I knew he'd go mad with the running this morning. Now the Weasley boys knew what I had to put up with every morning. I hoped that he'd done enough to calm his nerves. Mine were causing me to worry my hands in my lap every five seconds and Ginny, Fleur and Molly were attempting to distract me with talk of the rings.

"So these rings are connected magically as well as symbolically you say Hermione dear?" Molly said as she preened my veil while Ginny tried to get me to leave my hands alone long enough to give me a manicure.

"Yes, the goblin who forged them said there are all sorts of qualities a magical bonding between rings could provide us," I said with a forced smile, "the best thing is Ron won't ever lose his whenever he goes travelling."

Molly frowned at me.

"Oh dear I didn't even think of that, he's just disappear right out of it every time wouldn't he?"

"Not this one," I said with a bracing huff and Ginny slapped my hand with annoyance and set about applying nail polish, "whenever it leaves his finger it appears on mine. Quite useful really as it'll let me know whenever he goes travelling."

Fleur finished off with my hair and I thanked her and tried not to get into another panic when my mother screamed in shock at the arrival of my father through the fireplace with Arthur. They had gone to the Leaky Caldron for a drink so my dad could get a mini briefing on wizarding wedding traditions and Arthur could learn some of the muggle ones. My mum still wasn't quite comfortable about seeing her loved ones in flames before her eyes.

While everybody fussed all around me I sat and stared at my reflection in the mirror and tried to remember that this day would be over soon. I wouldn't have to look perfect and have sleek styled hair. There was no need for me keep grinning to reassure everybody that I was doing fine and soon enough there would be a time when all of these people would go away and it would be just me and Ron, just me and my husband alone together. Just the way I like it.

RON: While the twins fought over which one of them was to take the next shower after Harry came out I drank a whole carton of apple juice and then opened the fridge to look for something else before Bill grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me against the kitchen counter.

"Ron calm down!" he ordered while Percy smiled and shook his head from the doorway.

"I am calm," I lied.

"You're drinking like a maniac!" Bill laughed as he shook the empty juice carton in front of me.

"No Bill," I corrected with a smart-arse smile, "if I was drinking like a maniac that would be a bottle of apple Schnapps and not a carton of apple juice."

Charlie smacked me around the back of the head.

"Never going to be funny Ron," he said with a disapproving look.

I rolled my eyes and wished they would all just bugger off and leave me alone. I think they were doing more to aggravate my nerves than I was. I was still dripping from my cold shower. Harry had been thankful that I took it cold as he now had the luxury of hot water, something Fred and George kept yelling through the bathroom door at him they would like to share, and I had headed straight for the kitchen on my quest for more to drink with nothing but a towel around my waist.

"Are you planning on getting married like that or is the suit you've got hanging in your bedroom actually for wearing?" Bill said as he began to shove me out through the kitchen door while Percy opened the door to the bedroom for me to be bundled through.

"Well I kind of wanted to sort myself out some breakfast first," I protested at my bossy older brothers.

"I'll sort you out an omelette or something," Percy said with an impatient huff as he pulled the bedroom door closed behind him.

I took a step forward and reopened the door to lean out and call after Percy as he retreated to my kitchen.

"Cheese omelette?"

"Yes!" Percy said with annoyance while Charlie shoved me back into my bedroom and closed the door.

I opened it again.

"With onions?"

"Okay!" Percy yelled from the stove while Bill tried not to laugh and shoved me back into the bedroom again and told me he was going to lean against the door until I was dressed.

I grinned at the closed door ahead of me and disapparated into the living room right in front of Bill's face to call over my shoulder to Percy in the kitchen.

"Heavy on the pepper please."

Bill looked as if he was about to explode while Charlie stomped across the living room to pick me up bodily and carry me into the bedroom while I cackled to myself. This was one way to alleviate my stress levels, driving them all nuts.

"I hope Hermione knows what she's getting herself into with you," Charlie huffed as he dumped me down in front of my suit where it hung in the wardrobe door and began to fumble through my underwear drawer to toss me my socks and underpants.

"Y'know Charlie I have been able to dress myself for a good twenty or so years now," I said as I watched him pulling my shirt off the hanger.

"Well you wouldn't bloody know it from the way you've been carrying on this morning would you?" he bellowed into my face with such ferocity that my hair blew back a little.

I knew that laughing was the absolute worst thing I could do right now but I couldn't help it.

"It's nice to know he's so bloody relaxed now," Bill said with a wave of the hand in my direction, "I'm a nervous wreck!"

George was looking at our little scene and chuckling to himself, at least the twins didn't object to my newfound levity, before looking back to the bathroom door and cursing under his breath. Harry appeared beside him rubbing his wet hair with a towel and smiling.

"I think Fred beat you to the shower George."

I was about to start laughing like a total loon again when Charlie turned on me with a flushed face that reminded me of one of mum's rages and pointed at my suit with a finger that trembled with frustration and then back at me again.

"I want you dressed within five minutes or, twenty three years old or not, I will dress you myself."

"Omelette's ready Ron," Percy called from the kitchen.

"Oh brilliant," I said as I pushed past Charlie and headed to the kitchen for breakfast.

HERMIONE: My dad is asking me what I'm so tearful about. He says it's not like me. Well it is, I do get a little emotional when I'm happy or relieved about something, but he hadn't expected me to be one of those brides who cries on her way to the church.

I wouldn't ordinarily be one of those brides who cries at all. The thing is most brides don't see their unborn daughter and future husband waving at them from the side of the road as the car passes by. Ron looks to be about forty and the little girl looks about Cam's age, four or five years old, and I just felt my eyes flooding as I waved back at my future. I was marrying into the most bizarre life anybody could ever imagine...and I wouldn't change it for the world.

RON: I don't know how this could have happened. I was fine in the car. I was fine when I was talking to the guests waiting in the church. I was fine with Harry and my brothers as we came into the side room to wait for Hermione to arrive. I was even fine when dad came in and teared-up in front of all of us. He gave this big speech about how proud he was of all his sons, he included Harry in that which set him off to a certain degree, and then gave me a hug and walked out to sit with Mum, Fleur and Cam.

That was when it happened.

"I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go I know it Harry," I was jabbering while Fred kept insisting I try to breathe a bit slower, "I can't stop it and it'll happen in front of everyone and half the church is full of muggles!"

"Ron...calm...down," Harry ordered as he gripped my shoulders and fixed my eyes with his own determined ones.

"That's like fifty people who are going to need memory charms!" I said, speaking faster than I thought was possible, "How do you explain to fifty people why they don't remember a whole wedding Harry? How do I explain to Hermione's mum and dad that her entire family will have no recollection of the happy day _if_ it ever actually happens because I could be gone for bloody weeks?"

"Slap him," Charlie suggested, fearfully.

While Fred and George approached, rolling up their sleeves, Bill extended his arm to hold them back with an annoyed look at Charlie.

"Nobody's slapping him," Bill said firmly.

"Well what do you suggest?" Charlie huffed while Harry tried to get me to breathe in and out in time with him.

Bill thought for a moment before his eyes flickered and he bent over to get my attention.

"Ron did you invite Ben to the wedding?" he asked me as if he was talking to somebody who was hard of hearing.

I nodded and kept trying to calm myself down with Harry's help. Bill was about to turn to send one of the twins out into the church to get my healer's advice when they both closed the door behind them, already two steps ahead of his thinking.

"Right it'll be okay Ron, Ben's coming and he'll be able to sort you out alright?" Harry said with a smile.

I tried to nod but moving my head made me feel dizzy and feeling dizzy made me feel sick and feeling sick and dizzy were the first signs of a seizure and that made me panic because I thought I was in the middle of one so I would begin to freak out and then my eyes would blur and I really would be in a seizure and I really would be dizzy and sick and then there was no escaping it other than to let it take me and hope I came back within seconds or minutes.

"I said alright Ron?" Harry repeated on seeing my new wave of panic setting in and hoping to distract me from it.

I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again as I gagged and fought not to be sick.

"No!" Charlie pointed into my face, "No being sick and no travelling today right?"

I shook my head and swallowed the retch back down again.

"No travelling," I gasped as I tried to shake off the dizziness that was creeping into my head.

"You did all that running Ron remember?" Charlie was saying now as his attitude softened slightly.

I nodded and closed my eyes.

"Just picture the park okay? Your route around the park ahead of you and zone the seizure out like you zone everything else out when you go running," Charlie said and I tried to do as he said as the door clicked open and I heard Ben's voice.

"Are you sure it's not just nerves?" he seemed to be asking Fred or George.

"No," Harry was saying now, "we almost lost him a minute ago, the nausea hit and he wasn't focused on any of us for a second but Charlie's trying something with him and it seems to be working."

I built myself up to open my eyes again, taking several deep breaths and blowing them out before nodding and forcing myself to look around the room and hoping that I'd be able to see straight.

HERMIONE: Ginny smiled at me and told me that I was beautiful. I told her she should thank me forever for not inflicting a vengeful bridesmaid dress upon her and she tried to look innocent and shrug before breaking into giggles. She was wearing a sleek midnight blue dress and a lacy shawl. I hadn't wanted to wear white but my mother had insisted. I sometimes feel as if wedding days have nothing to do with the wishes of the bride and groom at all.

Just as Ginny and I finished hugging each other and my dad took my arm as the music swelled Arthur ran down the aisle towards us and I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"Hermione I'm so sorry but I'm afraid we just lost Ron."

My head dropped and Ginny's hand rested upon my back while my father started to say reassuring things to me. I knew this was possible, we all did, but no matter how much I tried to prepare myself for this eventuality it didn't stop it from hurting.

"Pst!" I heard just as Arthur was about to try to say some words of comfort.

The four of us all looked up and searched around us for the source of the sound.

"Pst!"

There it was again. Ginny and her father looked around the churchyard and me and my dad looked behind us but we could see nothing.

"Dad in here!" an urgent whisper that sounded so familiar I dare not hope hissed from just within the doors of the church.

Arthur leaned back into the church and jumped before leaning in further and whispering frantically and nodding before turning back to us and beaming.

"We've got a replacement Ron, not to worry!" he said with delight, "just give me a couple of minutes to smuggle him into the vestry and put him in Ron's suit and we can get this show on the road."

I laughed out loud while my dad looked incredibly confused and Ginny sighed with relief and took up her position behind me once again. I was getting married to Ron today after all.

Only my Ron still wouldn't be married to me when he came back.

* * *

HERMIONE: Everything had gone smoothly. My aunties and uncles wanted to know why Ron had suddenly seemed to age almost fifteen years while re-growing his hair since he had greeted them at the church but Arthur had discreetly done the rounds with his wand and surreptitiously modified their memories so nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary at all.

I was dancing with my new husband and joking with him about his mother's insistence that he cut his hair for the wedding making no difference at all to the scruffy looking Ron she would have to look at in all the wedding photographs forevermore.

"I never forgive her for that y'know?" he mumbled into my hair, "Getting my hair cut for nothing."

I giggled at this little grumble of his and kissed him.

"Well I got a little bit of a kick out of your new look didn't I?"

His face lit up as he remembered how I had jumped him as soon as he walked through the door with his shorter hair. It really suited him and it made it much easier to differentiate between my Ron and past and future Ron's when they visited. I knew that he was going to grow it out as soon as he could though. He kept complaining that short hair was too high maintenance for him to handle. That had made me laugh for a very long time while he struggled to explain that he meant that short hair needed more work first thing in the morning and not that he spent forever preening himself in front of the mirror.

_"I get out of bed and it's sticking up at all angles, I'm like a red headed Harry!"_

Neville tapped Ron on the shoulder and smiled.

"Do you mind if I cut in while you freshen-up Ron?" he said.

I blinked and looked at Ron who seemed to read something else in what Neville had said and looked over his shoulder to the gent's where Charlie was grinning and giving him the thumbs up. Ron looked back at me and kissed me on the lips.

"I'm just going to change alright babe?" he winked at me and stepped aside for Neville to take me whirling around the dance floor.

RON: I had vanished from the church in the afternoon and reappeared there in the evening in the blink of an eye. I don't even know where I had travelled to as I had barely been there long enough to regain my focus before it dragged me back again. Cavendish had been the poor mug who had stayed in the vestry waiting for me to come back so he could get me to the reception and smuggle me into the gent's toilets to summon my older self to come and swap clothes with me so I could go back out there.

He walked in and grinned at me.

"Well dad's going to go mental when everybody notices your hair's short again and he has to go around amending all those memories he just finished modifying."

I heard Charlie turning somebody away from outside the door, telling them something about faulty plumbing, while my other self got undressed and passed the clothes to me to put on.

"So what will you do once I go back outside?" I asked him.

"Well Charlie keeps people out for another ten minutes before looking in on me and I'm gone so unless I get the urge to climb out the window and scare old ladies with my tackle I assume I wait here until I disappear again."

I laughed as I pulled on my trousers and my other self pulled the blanket I had been wrapped in for my journey from the church to the reception with Cavendish around him.

"Well thanks for, y'know?" I shrugged to the older version of me who had just married my fiancée.

"No problem," he grinned, "you can do it they way you wanted tomorrow now."

As I pulled on my jacket and prepared to go out and face the world I nodded and broke into a wide grin before giving my other self a wave and stepping out to find Hermione.

HERMIONE: I saw his weaving his way through the crowd on the dance floor and Neville must have seen the look on my face as he gave a slight chuckle and stopped dancing with me immediately.

"Well I'll leave you to it Mrs Weasley," he said with a little bow and I gave him a peck on the cheek for being so sweet.

Neville held out my hand and Ron took it with a grateful nod to Neville before sliding his arm around my waist and planting a soft kiss on my lips. I saw that Ron's entire family, well everybody who knew about his condition to be honest, were all looking at us and beaming. We had all hoped that our Ron would be able to get back for some part of his own wedding day at the very least. I noticed Molly wiping her eyes and Fleur chuckling and giving her a hug while Arthur rushed out to deal with my bewildered Uncle David who was pointing out to my Auntie Joan that Ron's hair was suddenly different.

"I'm really sorry Hermione," Ron began to say to me but I stopped him before he could go into one of his little shame speeches with a lingering kiss.

He smiled and nodded to let me know that he understood I didn't need any explanations or apologies from him.

"Harry told me how hard you tried to stay for me. It's okay Ron, you came to me anyway didn't you?"

He frowned slightly before smiling and nodding as he pulled me closer to dance with him cheek to cheek. I breathed in his scent and closed my eyes as the female singer up on stage with the band began to sing a beautiful song that I had never heard before, claiming it had been requested by 'the groom's stand-in'.

_"Can we stay right here 'till the end of time, 'till the earth stops turning?"_ she was singing but I didn't hear any more of the song as Ron was whispering into my hair while breathing that hot breath on my neck in the way that drives me to distraction.

"I want to marry you Hermione."

I turned my head into the side of his neck and kissed him before looking up at his serious expression.

"You did."

He smiled and shook his head.

"_I_ haven't yet babe."

I understood what he was saying. He didn't want to wait all those years before he could say his wedding vows and call me his wife.

"We'll go to the town hall tomorrow morning and do it again," I said before standing on tip toes and meeting him as he lowered his head to share a deep kiss that ended when we both smiled and began to laugh into each other's faces.

"That was what I wanted to do from the very beginning," Ron chortled.

"Well you always did like to avoid too much fuss," I said as I rested my head on his chest and felt a little better about my quiet little official ceremony the following day.

"Let's not tell anybody about it okay?" Ron mumbled and I nodded, "Let's just have the two of us and a couple of muggle's we pull off the street for witnesses."

"That sounds wonderful Ron," I sighed, "Can we get homeless people to do it and then buy them lunch or something as a thank you?"

He leaned back to look down at me with an expression of awe-struck amusement.

"You are amazing!"

"I have to keep up with you don't I?" I shrugged as the beautiful song was coming to an end.

"I love you future wife," Ron said with a smile.

"I love you present husband," I replied as the two of us laughed and Ron spun me around on the dance floor while my mother and Molly broke into floods of tears and hugged each other.

"_All I've known, all I've done, all I've felt has been leading to this..."_

* * *

_6th November 2003 (Ron is 23, Hermione is 24)_

RON: I spent the morning scowling at my hair as it wouldn't do anything other than look like bed-head and Hermione laughed at me and ruffled it into a scruffy mess and told me that muggle guys spend a fortune on getting their hair styled to look that way. I declared that muggle men are morons and she laughed and told me that she didn't mind if she married me with a scruffy head.

"Start as you mean to go on after all eh?"

It was chilly outside and she had decided to wear a pair of black figure hugging trousers and a grey cashmere sweater over a lilac top. She didn't do anything with her hair other than brush it and she wasn't wearing any make-up at all. I thought she looked prettier today then she had the day before to be quite honest.

While she put a chunky scarf around her neck and walked over to the cloak stand to grab her winter coat I pulled on my most comfortable pair of boots, and by comfortable I mean clumpy and scuffed, before wandering over to her side to put on my own coat and scarf. She smiled up at me and let out a tiny laugh.

"What?" I said, wondering if I had something in my teeth.

"Nothing," she said with a shake of the head before taking my hand and pulling me out the front door.

HERMIONE: I couldn't stop chuckling to myself. This was so perfect. Ron had been right all along; this was how weddings should be done all the time.

I wouldn't be glamorous and perfect during our marriage. Ron wasn't going to be neat and tidy, he wasn't going to be publicly romantic and he certainly wasn't going to wear a suit for anything other than work, and that was how I liked it.

Yesterday was all about one day of putting our love for each other on display to the world. The thing is we don't love each other for just that one day. Ron doesn't love me because I have perfect hair and the perfect dress and there is romantic music swelling in the background. Ron loves me when I have a runny nose and my hair is all over the place and I've got no time to worry about being feminine and just want to be practical and comfortable. I don't love Ron because he got his hair cut just so he would look presentable for one day of our married life. I don't love him because he learns all the dos and don'ts of muggle etiquette so he can meet every single one of my relatives and not seem crazy to them. I love him because he just held the door open for me without giving it a second thought and he's wearing odd socks but tells me it doesn't matter because nobody normal looks at a man's feet anyway!

We stroll to the town hall in the blustery wind and he pulls me towards him to walk with his arm around me to make sure that I'm warm enough. The air smells of ashes, it was Guy Fawkes Night last night after all, and an elderly couple pass us as the go in the other direction with a smile and a nod and I giggle again.

"What now?" Ron asks me with an amused kind of annoyance.

"I was just thinking that will be us someday," I nodded over my shoulder to the old couple.

Ron turned and sniggered.

"Which one d'you want to be the man or the woman?"

I tried not to laugh but he had the wickedest grin on his face that I couldn't fight against and we chuckled all the rest of the way down the street.

We spoke to a couple of the homeless people who live down one of the side streets in Camden, a young girl with lank brown hair but a kind face and a man in his fifties who was wearing about nine layers of clothing that gave him the shape of an egg when he got to his feet, and the four of us went into the town hall to have our civil ceremony.

Len and Kelly, our two witnesses, applauded as we were declared husband and wife and shared a brief kiss before signing the papers and being issued with our certificate of marriage. We thanked them both and took them for lunch at a small restaurant that Ron had explained the situation to beforehand. That's another reason I love him so much. He didn't want the moment ruined by the place refusing to let our two homeless witnesses dine with us. We were seated and spent the next two hours chatting and laughing and making sure that Kelly and Len got more than enough to eat before going our separate ways.

I had wanted to do a little more for them both than simply feed them for one day but Ron had explained to me that us rewarding them for doing us a favour was one thing but a blatant handout was another. Ron would never accept charity when he was struggling for money before he got his job at the ministry and I took his word for it. Just because you have no money doesn't mean you have no pride after all.

I did get a warm feeling inside me when I overheard Len asking Kelly where she was sleeping over the winter and telling her that she should come to a squat in Goodge Street with him and the others from their little cardboard village when the expected freeze began. He had seemed to want to look after his new friend and that was something at least.

RON: We got back home at about twenty past three in the afternoon and sat in front of the fire enjoying the fact that we were properly married now.

"Ron?" Hermione asked me as she stared into the flames while I rested my head on her shoulder with my eyes closed so as not to get set off by the flickering.

"Yeah?"

"What day are we going to celebrate as our wedding anniversary?"

I opened my eyes and looked up at her with a frown.

"That's a good point actually."

She shifted around onto her side so we were almost nose to nose and wove her fingers between mine thoughtfully.

"Everyone else is going to call the fifth our anniversary so I suppose that's the most logical choice."

I smiled and kissed her softly.

"Whatever you want babe."

She licked her lips and raised her hand to rest upon the side of my face.

"I want it to be today though," she whispered as her brown eyes stared right into me in that way that can make me slightly light-headed sometimes, "this is the day I married you for real. This is the day we began our life together. This is the day we got married for us and not to put on a big lavish show for everybody else."

I moved my head forward and kissed her deeply for almost a full minute before breaking away and tucking her bushy hair behind her ear.

"Today it is then."

She smiled at me and got up from the sofa, pulling me with her by the hand and leading me to the bedroom.

"Let's get an early start on that wedding night Mr Weasley."

"Whatever you say Mrs Weasley."


	34. Nosey Parker

**Nosey Parker**

_30th January 2018 and December 31st 2010 (Ron is 37)_

RON: This can not be happening.

"Frankie!" I yell as I pace up and down my office with a red headed baby cradled in each arm, "Frankie quickly, I need you!"

Frances enters the office and freezes at the sight of me with the two squirming naked red heads and her eyes widen before she shakes her head vigorously and begins to back out of the door again.

"Oh no, not my job I'm afraid Agent Weasley."

"But Frankie I have a briefing," I pleaded desperately as I glanced up at the clock on the wall, "I have a briefing that started two minutes ago I'm late please."

"I am not a babysitter," she said primly.

The baby girl began to cry and I rocked her a little more and tried to quieten her down.

"Shhh, not now eh Aimez, be a good girl for daddy."

"The nursery would be able to take your children off your hands if you want me to floo them?" Frances suggested while keeping the maximum distance between us she could manage while still remaining inside the same room as me.

"No time Frankie I'm late already," I said while bobbing up and down and back and forth with the now pleasantly gurgling babies, "And this one isn't mine, it's _me!"_ I said as I nodded to the contented little boy cradled in my other arm.

"I do not answer to you in baby form sir, only from eighteen years onwards," Frances said with a slightly offended tone.

"I'm not asking you to take baby dictation I'm just asking for you to sit with them while I go and see Langley that's all. I won't be gone longer than five minutes I'm sure."

Frances didn't look impressed. She wasn't really one for children and had never had any of her own. I watched as her face twisted into an expression of reluctant consideration while I tried to set my own features into the most pathetically desperate look of helplessness I could muster. I almost kissed her when she took a single step forward to examine to two little ones as if they were alien beings.

"I don't know what one is supposed to do with a baby Agent Weasley, let alone two of them at once."

"They'll be as good as gold for you Frankie, I swear, look at me," I angled my infant self towards her, "I'm a brilliant baby, no bother at all. I just sit around and talk gibberish to myself until I go back home."

"Some things never change sir," Frances said with the very slightest of smiles.

I chuckle and Aimez smiles at me. I turned her towards Frances now and nodded down at her.

"See Aimez is great if you just smile at her, she likes happy people."

Frances raised both eyebrows at this.

"That is not how I would describe my demeanour would you Agent Weasley?"

I gave a weary sigh and looked up at the clock again. I was now three minutes late for my meeting with Langley.

"Frankie I have a briefing, please?" I whimpered.

She took a step forward with great annoyance and lifted Aimez out from my arm.

"Oh thank you!" I said as I set my infant self down on a pile of paperwork on the desk and set off running for the door.

"I will not change them if they defecate!" Frances called after me while I pounded along the corridor just in time to see Langley leaning out his office door looking very disgruntled.

Just as I was opening my mouth to make my excuses to him my shoe flew ahead of me and I stumbled out of my clothes and the corridor altogether and dropped to my knees with an enormously deep gag as I struggled to keep my stomach contents inside my stomach where they belonged.

"Right that's it Weasley," I heard the annoyed voice of Auror Parker saying as the door to the briefing room was slammed behind me, "cover yourself up and tell me what the hell is going on right now!"

I shook my head in an attempt to clear it and staggered to my feet.

"I've got spare stuff in my office," I began as I held a map of the Aurors latest target in front of me.

Parker took a step closer and fixed is hard dark eyes into a no-nonsense glare.

"You're not going anywhere until you explain to me why somebody with your deductive gifts and your ability to jump backwards and forwards in time can not track down or even identify the 'mole' in our department."

"Well I'm actually coming from a future where I know who it is Parker so get off your damn high horse for a second and let me talk to you about this without my tackle hanging out!" I said, cursing my present state of undress for taking away my ability to intimidate him somewhat.

Parker wasn't having any of it. His dark curls shook along with his head as he laughed a bitter laugh of false amusement and pulled his wand from his pocket so I could see it but didn't point it at me.

"So you have all the answers but just need to get dressed, then just need to drink a gallon of water, then you just need to visit your mother or go to the hospital or some other excuse so that just as you are about to share this little bit of useful information you go back to where you came from and leave us all clueless!"

I decided to step forward into a face-off. I might not have had a wand or any clothing at all but I did have something that would make any macho wizard back the hell off. I had nothing between my privates and his body other than a thin piece of parchment. Either he stepped out of my face for fear of brushing against me or he stood his ground and I would have to wonder whether Auror Parker was always watching me for 'other' reasons.

"You want to get into this now?" I said, feeling my confidence to intimidate him strengthen when Parker blanched and leaned away from me with an uneasy look in his eyes as they darted down to my concealed area and then back up to my face, "We can get into this now Parker. You've got a problem with me and I've got a problem with you and _that_ is why neither of us find the bloody bastard fast enough!"

"Fast enough?" Parker snorted as he turned and paced away from me, attempting to make it seem as if he was pacing with annoyance rather than getting the hell away from me as quickly as possible and maintaining the distance between us, "You were travelling from day one Agent Weasley. You would have seen all this trouble before it even started and yet you just sat around and acted all surprised when all the breaches began."

"Did it never occur to you that I don't click my bloody fingers and travel right to the mole's front door for a chat about his next target? Have your forgotten how many times I've come back from ambushes and traps and near fatal beatings? When I do show up somewhere he is, when I jumped into the future and didn't know what was going on, all I knew was that a hooded bastard wanted me dead! How does that pre warn you about anything you arrogant prick?"

Parker almost pointed his wand at me as he snarled his response, deciding against this and simply tightening his grip so I would notice and remember that he was armed and I was very much not.

"This isn't just about the mole Agent Weasley; this is about you and your idea of ethics."

I blinked, not following this new line of attack at all.

"What about my ethics?"

"I'm talking about how quickly and efficiently you weed out and deal with corruption amongst the Aurors themselves. You and your bloody reputation for keeping the department clean. You should hear bloody Cavendish talking about you to the young recruits; you've certainly got the wool pulled over his eyes haven't you?"

This was news to me. Cavendish and I weren't exactly mates but we trusted each other and would always call upon each other for back up in an emergency. I always thought that Parker had a lot of respect for Cavendish.

"If you are even thinking about accusing Cavendish of being crooked you're a bigger prat then I thought you were."

"Of course he's not crooked, he's in line to take over from Eldridge when he retires he's that good at what he does, but he's got a blind spot when it comes to you. Maybe it's because you used your 'connections' to get Davis off that dereliction of duty charge all those years ago."

That was hushed-up wasn't it? How did Parker know about that? The fact I had even been investigating it was consigned to the Unspeakables administrative department. There was no legitimate way he could have ever known about my looking into Bev's story let alone using the contingency plan for my future interference in procedure to exonerate her without charge.

"I don't know what you're talking about. There was no charge against Auror Davis."

"Bullshit!" Parker roared and I took a step backwards, bumping into the desk and surreptitiously sliding my hand just underneath the ridge for the spare 'emergency' wand that was always on hand in the briefing room, "I was nearly paralysed in that attack remember? Did you honestly think I wouldn't have wondered why nobody was held accountable for that whole mess?"

"How would you have known back then if I was investigating that fiasco anyway Auror Parker? My identity was still top secret; I was just a personnel clerk back then as far as you were concerned."

Parker snorted.

"Don't make me laugh Weasley; I knew there was something phoney about that from the start. When you had a new secretary every other week and then you had to be admitted to hospital for hexes and beatings that even the diehard Aurors weren't getting. Then I spoke to Janet after she left and she let slip that you had 'special requirements' as an employer."

I racked my brains and tried to recall who Janet was. I had so many secretaries before and immediately after Lavender that they all merged into one screaming woman with a transfer request in her hand.

"You want to watch your sources Parker," I said as my fingers felt the tip of a wand spellotaped beneath the desk, "she was supposed to be a secure employee and if she's betraying my secrets then she could be selling you out as well."

"That's my wife you're talking about!" Parker bellowed as he raised his wand to point at my chest while his olive coloured skin paled and his cheeks flushed with rage.

I ripped the wand free and pointed it at Parker who seemed to mentally kick himself for having forgotten that it was stowed there for circumstances just like this one.

"Well she should have kept her bloody mouth shut!" I yelled back, "Merlin Parker, you've got such a bee in your bonnet about security breeches and you're_ married _to one!"

"Shut up Weasley!"

"Well calm down Parker!"

Still seething he lowered his wand very slightly and I followed suit. Neither of us let ourselves relax though.

"I knew you were working undercover anyway, I didn't need my then girlfriend to tell me that. I just couldn't work out what the hell use you were to the department until the little trips became apparent."

I felt as if my eighteen year old self had just been insulted.

"Then after the mess at the winter solstice I found out that you had used your condition as a cover-up for Davis' negligence."

"Davis wasn't negligent and there was no cover up," I snapped, I couldn't believe that he was turning on Davis now too, she was another member of his squad that he always seemed to have the utmost respect for on a professional level.

"Oh I know there was nothing sinister on her part Agent Weasley, I just knew that malicious intent or careless accident she would have been thrown out for that and yet she wasn't. She wasn't even investigated according to her file and that, I believe, is because of you and your cover up."

"I'm clever Parker but I'm not a master criminal," I smirked as I began to really wish I had some clothes on right at that moment.

"There's something you don't know about me Agent Weasley," Parker said as his dark eyes flashed a midnight blue colour, "I am employed by the ministry in two positions."

I tensed up and gripped the wand in my hand firmly.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes I am. I'm an Auror _and_ an unspeakable."

I nodded to myself. This would be how he was able to know about paperwork that wasn't supposed to exist.

"Are you now?" I said in order to fill time while I edged around and tried to get myself out of the corner he had been backing me into.

"I saw that you were about to turf Davis out until something came up to cause you to consign the investigation to file 174 where it was to be left to gather dust indefinitely. What is file 174 Agent Weasley?"

I wondered if it was worth lying to him. I wondered if he already knew and it was just a rhetorical question.

"It's the place created for all time-related interference I may have caused over the years."

Parker's face twisted into a bitter expression of triumph.

"I knew it; you were involved in the whole thing from the start. What was it Weasley? You found out I was on to you and travelled back to call Davis away and let me get killed, was that the plan?"

"I would have known you didn't get killed you tit so why bother?" I growled with genuine annoyance.

"Well perhaps you did it as a favour to me then eh?" Parker laughed coldly, "After all it was during my treatment for that attack that the healers discovered a potentially fata tumour in my back that would have killed me within weeks."

I frowned and suddenly understood something while Parker read my change of demeanour to mean I was disappointed to have inadvertently saved his life and laughed again.

"Yes that's right, if you'd have done nothing at all that night I'd have been dead and out of your hair for good. Too bad Agent Weasley, I guess time really does heal everything."

"Parker look..." I began as I moved a little closer to the closed door to the briefing room.

"Then that day in March came along, I'd only just got back from my treatment and was called to your brothers' shop to arrest Lee Jordan for some petty little con that had got out of hand and threatened to bankrupt the ministry and found you there, apparently tortured into unconsciousness with the cruciatus curse, and Potter stunned by...what was it now?" Parker pretended to have forgotten the story he had been told by everyone in the room that day, "Oh yes of course, a room full of Death Eaters disguised as you! Very convincing, I would have bought it if I hadn't known about your ability to be in one place more than once at the same time. I knew you were crooked then."

"I am not crooked you arrogant git," I spat, "and as soon as Eldridge became aware of my condition I filled him in on the 'multiple me' day. There is no cover up; you have wasted your career investigating the wrong bloke!"

"Don't make me laugh," Parker yelled back at me, his dark eyes narrowing while he focused the full force of his mistrustful glare upon me, "Why else would you try and set me up then?"

"When did I do this then Parker?" I huffed, forgetting my need to get to the door and wonderful modesty concealing clothing and stomping across the room to tower over him with frustrated annoyance, "Please let me inside your wonderful imaginary world!"

"The day I saved your life!" he roared at me and we both stood face to face, almost shaking with confusion and self-righteousness.

We were frozen and staring deep into one another. The two of us were panting as if our verbal battle was in fact a physical one. Parker looked as if he was determined to know everything I knew but terrified of what he might learn at the same time. I tried to recall how things had spiralled into such a rapid state of suspicion between us and could come up with nothing. Did I suspect him because he suspected me or the other way around?

"I wanted to know why I had let you get hurt that night of the solstice arrests. I thought I was giving myself a sign to look into your activities so that's what I started to do," I said, with a newfound level of calm in my voice after all that shouting.

"So you were looking into my files and case notes that day you keeled over because you thought you'd left me to die for a good reason?" Parker sounded more hurt than angry as he said this.

"I knew you weren't going to die Parker," I reminded him.

"We seemed to have got ourselves into a chicken and egg situation don't we?"

My inappropriate sense of humour never leaves me, not even at times like this one and not at my mature age, and all I could think of to say in reply was a cock joke.

"Uh-huh."

"I still don't trust you," he said as he lowered his wand completely down to his side.

"That's okay," I said as I did the same with my wand, "I don't really like you."

Parker almost smiled, _almost_.

"Put some bloody trousers on," he grumbled as he turned away from me and ran his hand through his dark curly hair.

I flicked the wand over my shoulder and summoned my spare clothes from my office. They hit the window outside the briefing room and slumped onto the window ledge. I crossed the room and opened the window, looking out at the illusion of a view outside as I lifted them in, and began to dress while Parker kept his back turned and rubbed his forehead to ease the obvious headache this confrontation had caused him. As I pulled the sweatshirt on over the charcoal trousers I cleared my throat to let him know he was okay to turn around again, which he did with much caution.

"I was so sure you were a part of a bigger corruption within the department I didn't even bother going to Eldridge with my suspicions," Parker said as he wandered over to me, still wearing that look of mistrust and reading my reactions to everything he said with his eyes, "I went to the minister of magic via my unspeakable channels and told him what you were and how I thought you were abusing it."

"That was _you_?" I gasped with annoyance.

"Oh you found out about that?" Parker said with a raised eyebrow, "I didn't think the minister did anything about it."

He seemed to be very ticked off about this meeting with the minister even after all these years.

"Yeah the old duffer sent my brother to see me and ask for my co-operation in some kind of cloning tests the Unspeakables wanted to do. That had nothing to do with you?"

Parker looked about ready to punch through a wall on hearing this.

"Is nobody in the ministry straight laced anymore? I report you to the minister and all he wants to know is how to harness your talent rather than bring you to justice and now my own effing department is trying to clone you behind my back!"

"Welcome to my world Parker!" I snapped, "Everybody's looking out for the next advantage rather than the next guilty witch or wizard to punish. That's how this place works and always has done. Don't be so bloody naive!"

"Naive?" Parker said, yelling again, "I'm not naive I'm livid! I've been betrayed by the institution I was fighting to protect."

I threw my hands up into the air at this.

"Oh now you sound like my brother."

Parker seemed startled by this comparison and laughed.

"Did they..." Parker looked utterly bewildered and shrugged at his loss for a way to continue this interrogation now, "...clone you in the end?"

I shook my head.

"They didn't want to clone_ me_, just the time travelling gene or something. They thought it was a nifty little power to have and wanted to exploit it."

Parker nodded and sat on the corner of the desk.

"I can see that logic. I mean I wouldn't mind being able to click my fingers and find out where I have to be to prevent a murder before it ever gets the chance to happen."

I ran my hand through my hair and sighed deeply.

"It doesn't quite work like that. If they ever did manage to transfer the epilepsy to other people all they would really gain was a hell of a lot more streakers in Diagon Alley."

Parker laughed again and I felt myself joining in. My life had to be laughed at otherwise I would just go mad. We looked at each other and our smiles faded. I knew that Parker would never relax his caution around me and Parker knew that I would soon go back to a future where I would be three steps ahead of him at all times. We weren't going to be friends. We weren't even that great at being colleagues. The day would soon come when Parker wouldn't be around altogether.

This thought made me suddenly curious.

"Hey Parker what day is it today?"

"New Year's Eve," he sighed wearily.

My heart sank.

"What year?"

Parker looked at me and got back to his feet.

"What are you thinking Agent Weasley?" he asked me anxiously.

"Tell me what year it is Parker," I said with determination, "Where are the other Aurors?"

"Mission," Parker said, his need to keep what he knew to himself and find out everything I knew coming to the fore once again, "why, what year do you think it is?"

"I'm not messing around Parker, I am your superior in any time and from any time now tell me what year it is," this definitely shook him up, I never pull rank.

"2010, it'll be 2011 in a few minutes."

Shit.

"Parker listen to me..." I began.

"No sir, I need to join the others by midnight and I'm already running late."

"You and me both!" I huffed, "This is another of the mole's set ups and you have to go to the meeting point and _only_ the meeting point, nowhere else understand? You go and tell Eldridge to..."

"Does it work Agent Weasley?" Parker suddenly snorted with his arms folded.

"What?"

"Does telling me this change what you're obviously trying to change?"

My shoulders slump and I shake my head.

"Well I won't bother than," Parker said with a sarcastic shrug, "I'll just be where I'm supposed to be and get on with my job like I'm supposed to do."

"But you won't," I muttered under my breath and shook my head sadly.

Parker took a step towards the door and glanced over his shoulder at me.

"I'm going to be watching you Agent Weasley."

"Yeah and I'll be watching you," I said with a nod, "The thing is we're both watching the wrong bloke."

Parker looked sceptical and was about to say something more when the door to the briefing room was opened and Seamus Finnegan stood before the pair of us with a smirk upon his spite filled face.

"Feel free to watch me kick both your arses if yeh like boys."

Parker and I raised our wands and stood side by side as we faced Seamus with caution.

"I was just wondering why the two of you weren't at the massacre, oops sorry I mean the well timed Auror strike that the Death Eaters are completely unprepared for. Well they would have been unprepared if I hadn't sent them a little owl tipping them off of course."

"You worthless little traitor!" Parker hissed as he flung himself forward and flicked his wand at Seamus but the veteran escapologist was more than ready for him.

He dodged the restrainment charm and pulled another of his wretched escape portkeys out from his robes.

"Not here Parker, save it for the battlefield. Care to join your squad?" he smiled as he tossed the portkey at Parker.

It was then that I realised what had really happened to Parker on New Year's Eve 2010. It was the night Parker tumbled into the middle of the would-be Auror massacre and fought off enough of the waiting Death Eaters to warn the squad that it was a trap, but not before being struck by the killing curse at the stroke of midnight.

"Parker no!" I yelled as the sardine tin hit him on the chest and he was transported to his untimely end.

I turned to see Seamus snorting and aiming his wand at me.

"Well I think I did you a favour there Ron. That fella was really getting on my nerves. It's hard enough hiding from you in the present without that snooty bastard poking his nose in where it doesn't belong."

"You just became an accessory to murder Seamus," I said as I knew it was time to deliver some of the punishment he was used to dealing me in the name of revenge.

"Better than being an accessory to suicide is it Weasley?"

I could hear the muffled sound of the grandfather clock in Langley's office chiming in the New Year. Parker was dead and I had taken enough beatings and curses from this slimy little rat to last me ten lifetimes. It was time for a little rough justice.

_"Plaga oppugno!"_ I roared and slammed Seamus into the door behind him, closing it with the force of his body,

I heard something cracking inside his rib cage and gritted my teeth as he slumped down to the floor and threw back an attack of his own.

"_Trucido!_"

I dove behind the briefing board which got hit by the fatal curse and exploded into fragments before aiming my wand back at him as he struggled to his feet, clutching his chest and coughing.

"_Everbero!_" The curse hit him in the face and his nose gushed with blood while one of his eyes was struck and began to swell shut.

"What's this Weasley?" Seamus said with a pained amusement, "Going on the attack straight away, that's not like you at all."

"You don't deserve my humility anymore you bloodthirsty bastard, _Everbero!_" I yelled and Seamus was struck down again. Falling to his feet and clutching his jaw.

I had him now. He wasn't as powerful when it came to non verbal attacks, though he could still do them, and I'd just broken his jaw so he wouldn't be giving me much lip from now on.

A blue shield charm appeared before him and he struggled back up to his feet and aimed his wand at me. Something shot out from the tip of it but I didn't even have to waste my time on a counter attack. I simply ducked and the window over my shoulder shattered. This was what he had driven me to, I thought, No more defensive spells, no more restraining charms. I didn't want to catch him and hand him over to the authorities. I was the authorities and I was going to make him pay for taking Parker away from his wife the blabbermouth.

"_Everbero" Everbero! Everbero!_" the spells slammed into Seamus like Grawp's fists wearing steel knuckledusters and the rapidly bloodying wizard crawled along the wall of the briefing room throwing up ineffective shield charms that my spells sliced through as if they were butter, "What's wrong Seamus? Can't you take what you dish out? Do you only have it in you to duel with me when my back's turned or I'm fighting defensively so as not to hurt you ya cowardly little shit? _Everbero indentiem!"_

Seamus had to get to his feet and run now. There were too many rapid invisible blows pummelling him for him to remain on the floor at my feet any longer and he threw himself behind the desk while aiming a non verbal attack my way.

"_Oppugno!"_ I said with a shake of the head as his attack dissolved before it even got halfway across the room, "That is really pathetic Seamus now come on, you can do better than that can't you? Why don't you imagine I'm unarmed, naked and chained to a wall? You seem perfectly capable of using the cruciatus curse on me under_ those _circumstances."

I heard him grunt something via his broken jaw that sounded like he was telling me where to go.

"Speak up mate," I said as I aimed my wand at the desk that gave him shelter from my fury, "_Perfingo!"_

The desk shattered into splinters and Seamus rose to his feet and sent out three spears of red light one after the other. Even though I'm older than he is I'm in much better shape and dodged the first two while deflecting the third.

"_Depulso!"_ I hit him square on his fragile chest and blasted him backwards into the wall, knocking several framed pictures of famous Aurors to the floor where they smashed all around him.

Seamus threw another curse at me and it brushed past the side of my head with out me even flinching. It was like I was watching this fight from the outside where I had no fear of ever getting hurt. I had zoned myself out like I do when I go running. I wasn't going to kill him, I was still myself enough to keep my morals and principals in this battle, but I really wanted to hurt him before fate and time inevitably dragged me away so he could make his escape. I wanted to hurt him for all the times he had, and would still go on to hurt, me. He needed to know what a merciless beating felt like for once and right then, right there, I had no mercy.

"This one's for Parker," I said as I stood over him and aimed my wand at his chest.

Seamus grimaced and thrust his fist into my gut but I wasn't deterred from my attack and hit him where it already hurt with my curse.

"_Adficto!"_

He fell back and wheezed as my spell broke several ribs and I felt myself staggering backwards with a sudden dizziness and nausea. Seamus was too badly hurt to be able to gloat that he was getting away from me again and he could barely see out of his good eyes as it was now so I felt able to turn my attention away from him and wonder why I hadn't been taken yet. It felt just like pre-seizure symptoms and I looked down at myself to see if I was melting away from my clothes yet. Then I saw the blood, masses of blood pumping out from my stomach. I looked back to Seamus who was occupied with his own pain and dropped my wand just as I realised that my fingers were icy cold.

I put my pale hands to the warm gushing blood flow and they touched upon the cause of this massive blood loss, a fragment of glass from one of the shattered picture frames. Seamus hadn't just punched me in the gut, he'd stabbed me. I felt cold all over now and dropped do my knees just as Seamus met my eyes and we both stared at each other with our own internal fear of what we had done to each other. I fell forward and landed face down on the grass.

Grass?

I shivered, I was naked again and it was bitterly cold and the fact that I had already lost so much blood I was freezing anyway made me let out an exclamation of pain while I pressed against the wound with both hands to try and stop the blood flow. The fragment of glass had been left behind along with everything else that wasn't part of me in the briefing room.

"Did you hear something?" I heard a distant but familiar voice and strained to peer through the undergrowth to see Aurors Davis and Parker escorting am arrested Death Eater to the incarceration area.

It was the winter solstice. I was about to call Bev out of position and let Parker get attacked. I had to let Parker get attacked; he had a tumour in his back like he said.

"Bev!" I gasped as I rolled over onto my side and felt the wound tear a little as I did so, "Davis over here!"

I saw her pause. Parker and his prisoner were still wrestling each other onwards while abusing each other's magical heritage.

"Davis please help me!" I managed to say a little louder.

She glanced over to her partner and their prisoner briefly before running to the undergrowth and peering in with great caution.

"Bev it's me," I said before giving a small yelp as my body wouldn't support its own weigh anymore and I fell onto my back again.

"Ron?" she gasped and her eyes widened when she saw the blood, "Oh Godric," she stood up straight and was about to yell for Parker and the medi wizard on call.

"No Bev you do it please," I grimaced as I felt more warm blood ooze through my fingers, "I'm undercover and they can't know I was here right now."

Davis fought her way through the thicket to get to me.

"But Parker's on his own out there with..." she began as she prized my hands away from my wound.

"Leave him, it's for the best, I know what has to happen tonight," I was really cold now and began to feel light-headed.

"What do you mean you know what has to happen?" she frowned before flicking her wand at me and beginning to heal the deepest part of the wound.

"I'm going to have to let you in on a really strange secret," I shuddered.

Somewhere in the distance Parker cried out in pain.

* * *

_A/N So my eye strain has been cured...by my having to apend the entire weekend in bed suffering from the flu! Methinks the Ron revenge has reared it's spiteful red head again don't you? I sneezed with such ferocity last night that I spilt my top lip open...who knew that was even possible!_

_Anyway, I had these chapters pretty much done already so I am going to post them for you and then go back to bed and have saucy dreams!_

_Shari_


	35. The Last Day

**The Last Day**

_January 16th 2024 and September 14th 1999 (Ron is 43, Hermione is 44)_

RON: I really miss running in the morning.

Ben has tried and tested other forms of physical exertion for me to do in my present state but none of them give me that same 'shut down and zone out' that running used to do. When I do travel I tend to keep away from anybody who knows me. I'd rather they not know that I have this waiting for me in the future. I definitely know I don't want myself to see this coming. The good thing is I know I succeed. When I woke up in St Mungo's and lifted the covers to see why I couldn't feel my feet and saw nothing there I was as surprised as anyone. I don't think Hermione was really prepared for the amount of screaming I then did. I was so sure that I was having a nightmare.

If it is a nightmare it's been going on for a very long time now.

My knees are killing me these days, it's all the crawling around on the floor, and the skin is tough like leather now. Fred and George weren't able to understand why I couldn't just have magical feet like Moody's leg or eye and Wormtail's silver arm. I got tired of trying to get them to understand in the end, so did Ben, it was Percy who eventually got them to let the matter drop. The simple fact is there is just no point to fake limbs, hands, feet or even a wig if I were to be rendered bald in the future as they would be lost the second I went travelling.

Sure a wig could be put back on, though I don't like to think of myself with a wig actually, it makes me cringe, and if I was sucked away from my magical eye I could always put it back in when I reappeared as long as I could find it again. If I had magical false feet I would travel and leave them behind. Magical extremities don't just float onto your skin either, it's a whole attachment procedure and I would have to go through it every time I travelled.

The twins seemed to think that a procedure like that once a week was worth it until Percy reminded them that since I was no longer able to run any more my seizures would increase in frequency and possibly return to the five a week I suffered in the height of my epilepsy back in the nineties. That's when they got it I think. I would be in St Mungo's for reattachment nearly every day for the rest of my life and it just wasn't worth it.

I can levitate and float myself about the flat but sometimes I just can't be bothered with all that as the second I want to use my wand for anything else I go crashing to the floor. Aimez likes me at ground level though; I'm the perfect height to play with her she says.

I don't see a lot of people from work, Davis and Cavendish come by a lot but they became more like friends then colleagues so I don't count them. I saw Nick Boyer in town a couple of times and he's just as mental as ever, laughs every time I mention cheese as well for some reason. Then there's the biggest surprise of all, Frankie. She's never away from the place! Who'd have thought she'd end up missing me? She even gets a kick out of Aimez now that she's a little older and less likely to 'expel fluids' at her. She took her retirement from the ministry the same week I had to be put out to pasture officially. She didn't want to get to know another cocky replacement she said. Hermione reckons that she just missed me. I don't know.

I shuffle off the bed and into a floating chair waiting to transport me to the lavatory for my daily and very demeaning 'assisted pee'. Throughout the rest of the day I can float myself on and off the loo easy enough but my bladder doesn't have the patience to wait for me to get there first thing in the morning so I have to swallow my pride and let the chair whisk me away as soon as I get out of bed. Hermione stirs and murmurs a good morning as I zoom out of the bedroom.

_Godric who'd have thought life would end up like this?_

I flush and wash my hands before banishing the damned chair back to the bedroom and cast a little hover charm beneath my knees and glide into the kitchen to make a cup of tea for myself and a coffee for Hermione.

"Daddy!" Aimez calls to me from the living room, she is the early bird in the family, "come watch Bagpuss with me!"

I roll my eyes, Hermione and her bloody nostalgia! She got something called a DVD player that can let Aimez watch all Hermione's favourite television programmes from when she was a little girl and this pink and white cat thing has fast become her favourite.

"Coming Aim, just sorting the tea," I call back to her.

"I made you chocolate porridge!" she calls back to me with pride.

My stomach screams and begins to plead with me not to do this to it again.

"Oh great," I say with thinly disguised enthusiasm, I hear Hermione laughing from the bedroom, "did you make enough for mummy as well?"

"Yep," Aimez replies and I chuckle at the look I imagine Hermione now has on her face.

Aimez's idea of chocolate porridge is to take a handful of oats and sprinkle them onto some cold water before stirring in a spoonful of coco powder. She seems to enjoy it and insists that I have some as well 'because daddy likes chocolate'. I will get her to come around to the idea that daddy can enjoy chocolate in frog form just as much as porridge form, just not for a little while yet.

The tea and coffee are made and I wriggle off the levitation charm and set the mugs down onto it, shoving them off ahead of me as I crawl along behind them. Hermione joins us in the living room and picks up her coffee before curling up on the sofa behind me, she busies her fingers in my hair while Aimez sits on my lap and recites the episode she is watching word-for-word while I drink my tea.

I could feel sorry for myself really but you've got to admit that for all the nasty things that could have happened to me over the years I've got quite a lovely life. I've got Hermione when I almost lost her. I've got Aimez when we had to go through all that hell and lose all those other babies in order for her to exist. I fell out of the sky, well I still do that now, and got dumped in Hogwarts lake, that too, and stuck in the ice and snow, okay I'll stop listing things I still have to do because now I'm getting depressed.

What I mean to say is things could have been much worse. I am looking on the bright side. Hell I'm nearly forty-four for crying out loud, neither Ben nor myself thought I'd live this long. I look around the flat for some wood to touch so I don't jinx myself with that thought but I don't see any.

"Daddy, you like your porridge?" Aimez grins up at me.

"Mmmmm," I nod while Hermione pulls at my hair and I try not to laugh.

"What about you mummy?"

"Delicious as ever angel."

Aimez seems pleased enough with that and watches the rest of her programme.

I blink and set my mug down on the floor so I don't drop it. It's the damn TV, it sets me off every time, and I forgot to focus my eyes somewhere else while it was on. Hermione seems able to tell a seizure is coming at the same moment I do nowadays and I sense her leaning forward to look at my face.

"Sweetheart can't you shake it?" she says softly while she strokes my fringe away from my closed eyes.

I make a murmuring sound and shake my head, I really don't want to throw up Aimez's porridge, it would hurt her feelings and she blamed herself for sending me away last time it happened.

"Aimez get off of daddy's lap for a second would you?" Hermione is saying now and I feel my daughter's weight lifting from my legs.

"Daddy can I come this time?" I hear her saying while her fingers curl around my own.

I try to smile for her but the head rush is hitting me hard and I try to keep the room from spinning. Aimez has a weird control over her seizures, she can sometimes tag along with me voluntarily and she doesn't seem to be affected by flashing lights the same way I am, Ben thinks it might be because she is the seventh child of a seventh child, it makes no sense to me so I don't try to understand it.

"I can look after you," she whimpers and I hear Hermione trying to explain that daddy will be fine on his own for this trip.

I'm about to fall onto my side with the dizziness and the room is sucked away from me and I lay on my stomach behind a sofa in a very familiar flat. It's a flat I have visited every year since the summer of 1999. It's a flat I somehow know I'll never have to visit again after today.

"Ron?" I hear her sniff.

"Yeah Lavender, it's me."

I heave myself up into a sitting position and find that Lavender is curled up on the sofa with a tear streaked face and a steaming glass of potion in her hands. She sees me looking at it with a tired frown and downs it in one defiantly.

"It's a nerve tonic don't worry," she said with a hint of bitterness in her tone.

"Okay good," I nodded while reaching up to pull a fabric of some kind down from the back of the sofa to cover myself up.

"Aren't you going to throw all your clothes on and leave me like you usually do then?" she said as she wiped her bloodshot eyes.

"Not this time no," I heaved a weary sigh and tried to shift my weight back out from behind the sofa a little to talk comfortably with her.

Lavender freezes at this and stares at me. I see her hands shaking and her face is pale.

"Have you finally come for me?" she says in a barely audible whisper of hope.

"Lavender don't do this again, we've talked about this too many times now haven't we?"

I see the tears welling up in her eyes once again and begin dragging my body along the carpet to get into some kind of position where I am able to try and comfort her. She jumps to her feet and storms out into the kitchen before I'm even clear of the sofa and I give in and just call after her.

"Come on Lavender, we can't keep doing this forever y'know? I can't come and save you anymore, I'm not going to be able to so we need to talk about..." I froze and felt my breath leave me as Lavender walked back into the room with her wand drawn and her glistening eyes wide like a dear frozen in the headlights, "...no, you don't need that do you?"

She choked back a sob and laughed.

"What do I need Ron? Tell me please, what is it that I _need_?"

"Lavender look," I began, not knowing how to go about talking her out of doing what I know I won't be able to stop her from doing.

"I'm going mad Ron," she said as the tears finally flowed from her brimming eyes and she hugged her arms to herself, "I've hurt you in so many ways and I've hurt Seamus and Neville and I've lost Parvati as a friend. I'm just a basket case to everybody now."

"Don't do this to yourself," I reached up to try and slip the wand from her loose fingers but she paced away from me just as my fingertip brushed against the wood.

"I'm going to die lonely and unloved. I'll become one of those old spinster witches I used to laugh about," she was pacing frantically now, "I had such a bright future at the ministry and I've lost that now!"

"No Lavender you haven't, there's more to the ministry then just the Auror department isn't there, and you asked for the transfer. You wanted to make a change and move on with your life didn't you?"

"Did I?" Lavender suddenly turned on her heel and screamed down at me on her floor, "I didn't want to leave you Ron. I didn't want to let you go and look what I became because of that. Look at what I tried to do to you today."

I rubbed the side of my face and forced my eyes closed to try and keep up with the latest in a long line of senseless Lavender Brown rants.

"You should have woken me and talked to me about this," I said, "Why didn't you wake me before you left?"

Something came over her and she looked momentarily relieved before hugging her arms to herself again and her face crumpled into an emotional disintegration of despair.

"You still don't know," she said through her strained vocal chords, "you never found out what I tried to do...what I did."

I pulled myself along the floor a little more now, determined to get to the bottom of this whole Lavender Brown mess for both my own and Seamus' sake.

"What did you do Lavender?"

She turned away and looked out through her window. I watched her shoulders shaking as her head dropped.

"Whatever it was I forgive you okay?" I called up to her, "Don't tear yourself up like you did over the appendix thing. This is all in your head, this can't be as bad as you think it is."

"It is bad!" she screamed and paced away from the window and away from me again, "I'm a terrible person and he was right to get me away from you."

"What, who?" I frowned.

"He should have got me locked away for good. He should have punished me. I should be punished Ron."

I drew in a deep breath and gritted my teeth before dragging my body back in the other direction to get to her.

"Lavender you're not making any sense," I began to pant, deciding to roll over and crawl to her on my aching knees, "Calm down and stay still for a second so I can talk to you."

"What can you ever say Ron?" she spun around and yelled down at me, "Will you get up and look me in the eye when you're lying to me too? I want to see the hate in your eyes as you tell me it isn't my fault and that you really do care about me."

"I can't!" I lost my cool with her as my knees made a painful grinding sound.

"Because I'm just not worth the effort anymore am I Ron?" she said as she lifted her wand up to her temple.

"No Lavender don't!" I yelled as I rolled onto my back again to show her my legs, "I can't get up because of this alright? I can't physically get to you so please put the wand down and come down here to talk to me. Please Lav," I begged her.

Her wand remained at her head but it was shaking erratically now. She swallowed her tears and her bottom lip was quivering while her eyes grew even wider, despite the puffiness around them, and stared at the stumps at my ankles.

"So you're damaged too now huh?" she said with an odd distant sound in her voice.

"When wasn't I damaged?" I said with as much of a smile I could manage right then.

She lowered her wand and took a step toward me with a shudder.

"So after all those years of running away from me...now you can't."

I didn't like the sound of that and swallowed as I shifted my weight with my arms and prepared myself to have to fight of a love sick woman while dressed in some kind of shawl and without the luxury of feet.

"Now don't think like that Lavender, you're better than that I know you are," I said while struggling not to drag myself away from her and make her rejection complex even worse.

"You think I'm better than rape do you?" she said with a cold laugh, "You don't know me at all Ron. You don't know what kind of abomination I have become. You should talk to Harry, he'll tell you just how much he thinks of me."

"Harry?" I was getting lost in Lavender logic; she had never been this random with her emotional outbursts before.

"Or your sister, she has a high opinion of me too doesn't she?" Lavender said as the pacing started again and heaved a sigh and propped myself up against one of the walls of the living room with resignation, "I'm the mad skank who'd let you die just so I could cop a feel!"

"None of my family talks about you like that Lavender," I snapped, "None of our friends either. We all worry about you and just want you back the way you were for crying out loud! There was a time you did nothing but giggle, where the hell did that time go?"

She spun around and pointed her wand at me.

"Well you are the expert on lost time Ron!" she screeched, "You tell me. Where did Lavender Brown go to because I've been looking for her and I can't find her anywhere."

I stared at the tip of Lavender's wand and tried to find something I could say that wouldn't tip her over the edge but my mind was completely blank.

"Well?" she demanded an answer and I could only shake my head.

"You know what I think Ron?" she said as she took another step towards me, her wand still pointing down at my chest, "I think that bright future you promised me was all a lie."

"Lavender don't..." I began as I tried to drag myself away but found myself backed into a corner.

"You told me that not a year goes by in either of our lives that we don't see each other and I think I've worked out why that is Ron."

"No," I shook my head and tried to think of anything I could do to stop her.

"It's because I die today and you come back every year to try and stop me until you die as well, isn't that it Ron? Isn't that the truth?"

"Lavender time's not entirely unchangeable, Hermione's got this idea about beating it and maybe this can be how we do. Maybe it's me and you Lavender, maybe we change time between us and have different lives but if you do this you'll just be following the plan and nothing can ever change."

"You know you can't change a thing about my life and when it ends, don't lie to me anymore Ron!" she wailed as her wand arm began to shake again.

"I-I changed things once," I stammered, pulling anything I could out of my brain now, "I knew Harry was going to kill somebody and I stopped it and he never did. I can change things Lavender. We can change things I swear."

"So that person never died?" she asked me and I knew that she already knew the answer and felt my shoulders slump just as she threw her head back with devastated laughter, "You change the silver dagger to a gold one but it makes no difference Ron, the final cut is always going to be the final cut isn't it?"

"Lavender, Seamus loves you so much that he ruins the rest of his life trying to get some justice for you. You are loved just the way you say you want to be loved and you won't ever get to see it if you do this."

"There is no 'if' Ron, there is only 'when' and we both know that the time is now. You've always known haven't you?" she sobbed as her wrist flicked and I flinched as the wand jerked away from my chest and pointed into Lavender's own face, "Today is the day and you can't do anything to stop me."

"Lavender please don't do this," I said as I saw her closing her eyes and sparks flying from her unsteady wand.

"It's been done already, you've lived a life without me and it's time for me to fulfil my part in that life by removing myself from it."

"No!" I yelled.

Her eyes opened and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Tell me how I do it Ron," she said with a tremor in her voice, "Do I take the killing curse in the face?" she lowered the wand to her chest, "To the heart maybe? That would be appropriate wouldn't it?"

I was shaking almost as much as she was now and I crawled forward and reached out my hand to try and grab the wand from her but she shoved me back with her foot and took a step back.

"Lavender don't do this."

"The heart it is," she mumbled as she looked me in the eye.

"_NO!"_

She closed her eyes and flicked the wand at her chest.

"_Avada kedavra!"_

I brilliant flash of green light slammed into Lavender's chest and she fell heavily to the floor while I gagged on a combination of a yell and the contents of my stomach forcing their way up and out of me. The green light faded from my view and so did the room which spun away from me while I vomited and forced my eyes closed until I was on my hands and knees on my own living room carpet retching violently and shaking as if I had just been plunged into ice cold water.

"Ron! Oh Godric, Aimez go to your room and play while I help daddy okay angel?" Hermione was saying while she rubbed her hand up and down my back and pulled something soft and warm around my shoulders.

"But I want to help daddy to feel better," I heard my little girl protesting sadly.

"Aimez I mean it, go!"

"I do it when you're not here," I felt the floor vibrate with Aimez's petulant stomp of the foot and spat the last of the bile from my lips before choking on my emotions and losing the will not to cry in front of my baby girl.

"You know daddy doesn't like you to see him like this now do as you're told please," Hermione had worded this statement to leave no room for further argument as far as she was concerned and I heard Aimez's bedroom door slam.

Once I knew she was out of sight I put my hands to my face and let it all out. Hermione was shushing me and stroking my hair as my whole body shook with the sobs of despair and relief. Despair that I hadn't been able to do anything for Lavender in her final moments and relief that I would never have to go back there again. It was all over at long last and my visits to the summer of 1999 had made absolutely no difference at all.

"Ron come on sweetheart, it's going to be alright, you're home again now," Hermione was saying in a soothing tone.

I reached out for her and held her to me while I just kept on crying and soon felt her rocking me from side to side while planting kisses onto the top of my head.

"Please tell me what's upsetting you Ron," she whispered into my hair, "I hate seeing you like this. Please let me know what I can do to help."

I shook my head and held her even tighter. There was nothing anybody could do. There hadn't even been anything I could do to stop it. Lavender had died and Seamus had snapped and we would spend the next twenty years of our lives trying to kill each other. For all my experience in time travel I was still no good to her. I had still driven her to die just the same way I had done when I was nineteen years old.

"Ron please tell me what happened to you. Where did you go?"

"L-Lavender's...Lavender's dead." I managed to say before shuddering and crumpling into another coughing fit of emotion.

"Yes?" Hermione was saying with unease, "for a long time now."

"No," I gasped as I finally pulled my face out from it's hiding place in Hermione's stomach to look up at her through my hazy waterlogged vision, "just now, right in front of me."

Hermione suddenly understood and pulled me into her where we stayed, rocking from side to side in silence for another five minutes, until Aimez's door creaked open and her little voice called out.

"Please let me look after daddy with you mummy, I don't like hearing him crying."

I heard Hermione's voice cracking at the back of her throat as she tried to give the motherly response but she couldn't manage to get the words out. I reached my arm out behind me and heard Aimez running to me. My fingers curled around her tiny arm and pulled her into a three-way hug with us. I felt Aimez's arm curling around my back and her little head lying on my shoulder. Hermione moved her own arm up so she could stroke Aimez's hair while the three of us held each other for a little longer without words.

Not until Aimez mumbled into my skin.

"I'll always look after you daddy, don't be sad."

I felt my eyes burn while Hermione sniffed and held us both a little tighter to her.

"It's okay Aim, I'll be fine, I just need a cuddle that's all," I said with a strained voice, "Daddy just had to say goodbye to a very old friend who was very very sick."

I felt Hermione's shoulders shaking.

"Are they all better now?" Aimez asked me with her sweet little innocent voice.

"Yeah," I nodded, "all the pain's gone away."

* * *

_A/N Deisel writer, You are right Ron did travel twice in the last chapter. It wasn't a mistake, he can do it but it's rare. I've very casually mentioned it in an earlier chapter, I think it's All The Places I've Been, when Ron warns Hermione that she has to get better at emergency healing and to tell the twins to learn CPR. He tells her that he didn't know where he was and then he came to her. He leaves her at the end of his little warning to go back when he belongs._

_There's nothing to say he can't have a seizure while in the time line of another seizure but I didn't want to over complicate things for you all by going into that. Also It's partly the time gravity thing as well. He learns why he let Parker get hurt and is traumatised by the realisation that Parker had just been murdered at the stroke of midnight while stressed about having been stabbed in the gut and this pulled him back to that very night when the mistrust with Parker all began._

_I bet when you read this chapter's title and saw how old Ron was you thought I was about to kill him didn't you? You know something bad is going to happen when I write a character being happy with their lot in life and then saying 'touch wood' !_

_This should be finished before the weekend. Not long now..._


	36. Beating The Clock

**Beating The Clock**

_9th April 2007 and 8th September 2017 (Ron is 27 and 37, Hermione is 27 and 37)_

RON: I had been enjoying this weekend with the ten years younger version of Hermione and myself. Junior Ron and myself had gone running every morning, averaging about 6 laps of the park before taking it in turns to take a cold shower and cook breakfast.

Hermione had quite enjoyed our ability to multi-task. For her she had her husband with her every minute of every day of the weekend while the Ron of 2007 could go into town and meet up with Harry and Neville for an afternoon watching Quiddich, as ever the Cannons lost but I didn't tell my younger self that would happen before he left the flat full of hope, and even managing to persuade Dean Thomas to meet up with them afterwards for a drink. That made me smile. Harry always had to be very careful when he got home never to mention to Ginny that he had taken me to a pub. I was fine with it, the family were fine with it and more importantly Hermione was fine with it, but Ginny had never really lost that over-protective streak when it came to me being in the vicinity of alcohol. It was of course one of the most popular causes of argument between her and Harry before their five year split, which was on the horizon for both of them.

I had spent the day with Hermione in Muggle London, we ate, she took me to the theatre after checking that there would be no flashing lights to send me on a further time jump and then we ate again in Diagon Alley before going home and falling asleep in front of the fireplace. WhenI woke up I was alone and covered with a blanket so I assumed my younger self had come home and taken his present-day wife to bed.

On Sunday, after our run, we went to the Burrow for lunch with the whole family. Fred and George pestered me for the results of the next world cup matches so they could rake in the galleons but Hermione was outraged at the idea of my condition being used for fraud and I left her giving the twins a good talking to while my younger self hid in the kitchen with Charlie and I took Cam off Bill and Fleur's hands to take him to the pond in the woods out back and teach him how to swim. He took inventory of all my scars, he's a morbid one is our Cam, and demanded to know all about how I got the ones he'd never seen before.

"So he beat you with a magical whip?" Cam gasped, slightly impressed.

"Well not a whip exactly," I shrugged as Cam examined the three long thin scars across my back, "it was more like a spell that caned me across the back and burned into my skin.

"Is that dark magic Uncle Ron?" he asked me as he splashed back around to float in front of me.

"Very," I nodded.

"So how do you defend against that then?" he frowned.

He always wanted to know about protection and healing rather than hexes. Most kids his age are all about what havoc they want to create when they get their first wand. Fleur and mum were always so proud of him when he expressed any interest in keeping people safe with spells rather than attacking them, even in a playful fashion like Fred and George used to as kids, and Bill had once confided in me that he thought it was because he grew up seeing the damage hexes and curses caused via all the hospital visits he had paid me over the years.

"Well protego would've done it but..."

"You didn't have your wand," Cam nodded sadly.

"Even if I had it's not much good to me when somebody sends a spell at my back. There's not a lot you can do about fighting a coward Cam, they're even worse than an out-and-out evil witch or wizard."

I found it funny how I always talked to Cam as if he was my peer rather than my little nephew. The Weasley family have never really been ones for baby talk but I still think I'm the only one who tells Cam how it is without any kind of sugar coating. He told me on his seventeenth birthday that I wasn't just his uncle but also one of his best friends and Godric help me I nearly cried. It was Cam who saved my life when I staggered out of the forbidden forest after being kicked half to death by Centaurs when I had travelled there. He uprooted some kind of herb from Hagrid's garden and made a magical compress with it to slow the internal bleeding until Hagrid could get me to Madame Pomfrey for treatment.

After Cam and me strolled back to the Burrow to say goodbye to the rest of the family I flooed back to the Hornet's Nest with my other self and Hermione. The other me had come over a little dizzy as he stepped out of the floo and managed to fight off a seizure before Hermione insisted he go and lie down for an hour just to be sure and I spent the time from sundown into early evening thrashing Hermione at chess before slumping in the armchair and feeling my eyelids closing.

"Hey get on the sofa and sleep properly, that looks so uncomfortable," she said after a few minutes of watching me fidget until my long legs hung over the arm and my body was curled up in the seat with my head resting on the arm rest.

"It's not, I'm comfortable," I mumbled, really I was too lazy to get up and change seats.

"Liar," she said with some amusement.

I must have dozed off as when I opened my eyes the room was dark, lit only by the crackling fire and I closed my eyes again and shifted my weight so I was turned away from the flames when I opened my eyes again. Flames were hit and miss with me, sometimes they'd send me into a seizure right away and other times they were of no bother at all. I saw Hermione sitting across from me with a sketchpad and a piece of charcoal between her thumb and forefinger.

"What are you doing?" I murmured sleepily.

She smiled at me and threw the charcoal down onto the coffee table; her thumb and the side of her finger were black.

"I was sketching you sound asleep in that awkward position but you've moved now."

I gave her a lazy smile and tried to get comfortable in my new position, it wasn't really happening for me.

"Ah the Crookshanks picture," I chuckled as I forced myself to sit up, "You have it above your writing desk at home."

She frowned at me and laughed.

"I don't think you've woken up properly. I said I was sketching _you_ not Crookshanks."

I sat forward and pointed at the ugly great moggy where he was curled up in front of the fire.

"No look at the picture and now look at Crookshanks," I said as I leaned forward to watch her comparing the two several times before gasping and laughing loudly.

"I never even noticed that before. Godric Ron how long have we been married and I never even realised that you sleep in exactly the same position as my cat!"

I rubbed my tired eyes and sat back in the armchair.

"Well I've always said he's copying me rather than the other way round. I have to stick my legs out at unseemly angles, they're too bloody long for dignity and elegance, I dunno what Crookshanks' excuse is."

Hermione put the sketch down on the coffee table and drew her legs up beneath her where she was snuggled on the sofa and smiled down at her overstuffed cushion of a cat.

"Well maybe he can't fit his legs underneath him comfortably either. He's getting quite fat now."

"Now?" I shorted, "He was never that lithe to begin with babe."

Hermione laughed and threw a cushion at me. I was still pretty sleepy and didn't bother trying to catch it. I let it bounce off my head and drop to the floor. My eyes fell on the sketch that I had grown so familiar with over the last ten years and felt weird to have just inadvertently struck the infamous pose for it without realising. Hermione saw me staring at it and leaned back over to look at it herself.

"I think I've got your likeness down quite well," she said proudly.

I yawned and nodded.

"Yeah, you're a brilliant artist babe, I've seen this brilliant sundial you make in the future that's all about karma and stuff. That fish symbol that I always mispronounce, y'know?"

"Yin and yang," Hermione informed me before picking up the sketch and looking strangely proud of herself, "I become a bit of an artist do I?"

"Uh-huh," I nod as my sleepy eyes begin to fall closed and I struggle to find that ever elusive comfortable position again, "You're really good too. This sundial has the yin and yang symbol on it and it's beautiful."

"I've always liked that symbol actually," Hermione sighed thoughtfully, "It kind of helps me to make sense of everything we had to go through when we were kids, everything Harry had to go through, one half is very dark but it has to be there to complete the circle. It has to be there to make it whole you know what I mean Ron?"

My eyes were closed but I was still listening to her and nodded.

"If there was never any darkness all we'd have left would be a lonely fish and what the hell kind of symbol is that for life eh?"

I heard her laughing at me and opened my eyes a crack.

"Oh Ron you're so deep!" she rolled her eyes and I chuckled.

She reached out for the charcoal and lifted the sketch onto her lap. I frowned and sat up a little on seeing her put the charcoal to the blank corner of the sketch.

"Hermione what are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm writing the date for posterity."

"For who?" I said before leaning forward and putting my hand on her wrist just as she was going to start writing, "Don't, you don't write anything on it Hermione. You leave it just as it is."

She looked at me and blinked.

"What do you mean I don't write anything on it? I am doing now."

"I know but in the future I have the picture memorised and there isn't a date written on it. You leave it just the way it is now, no signature, no date, no nothing."

Hermione stared at me for an uncomfortably long time before looking back down and writing the date with a determined look on her face.

"What are you doing?" I said as I sat right forward now and my sleepy haze left me completely, "I told you that's not supposed to be there in the future."

"Exactly Ron," Hermione said defiantly as she put the charcoal and the sketch back down onto the table and fixed my eyes with a hard look, "and I'm sick of this whole predestined crap you keep giving me."

"Language!" I said half joking and half worried about Hermione's eternal need to challenge the future in order to break the time loop, "Y'know babe this is bordering on arrogance on your part. You can't just mess around with my future y'know?"

She laughed and shook her head.

"Oh really Ron it's just a date on a drawing that nobody but us ever sees. What harm can this little change do the timelines?"

I couldn't explain myself but I really didn't like this idea. I found that my hands were searching for something to do with themselves and my right leg was bouncing up and down anxiously.

"It's...Nothing's little when it comes to this time stuff Hermione. Look I really don't like it can you erase it or something? It's not supposed to be there."

Hermione's amusement left her face and she moved closer to my to try and alleviate my worries while remaining determined that she was right to challenge time in this way.

"Ron you know my thoughts on this don't you? I can't recreate Dumbledore's spell, exactly what he did and how he did it died with him, but I really think that we can stop the jumps by sticking something in the spokes to stop that wheel turning and keep you where you're supposed to be."

"But there's too many ifs in that theory Hermione," I said uncomfortably as I couldn't stop glancing back at that date that wasn't on the sketch back in 2017 and feeling as if we were messing with something we had no business to mess with, "What if I stop and can't move at all? What if I get stuck here or there indefinitely? What if I can't ever go back at all? What if the future I go back to isn't the one I left behind. I really don't like this..."

Hermione dropped to her knees right in front of me and took my face in her hands. I needed her to understand that I wasn't following some self imposed set of time travel rules, this was a gut instinct and I couldn't let her risk the whole future just to prove me wrong again."

"...Please change it back Hermione, something's not right about this. I can't explain it but I just know you shouldn't be messing around with time like this."

"Shhh Ron, calm down alright," she said before kissing me on the lips to keep me from gibbering, "I won't do anything you don't want me to do and I will never ever risk you or your future, _our_ future Ron, on some stubborn whim of mine."

I exhaled my relief and smiled at her, the smile didn't seem to reach my worried eyes though and she seemed to notice this and kiss me again before going on.

"I don't want to challenge time for the sake of my own curiosity or some arrogant intellectual experiment or other. I want to show you that you don't have to worry about a cure or the stupid inevitability of never reaching your forty forth birthday. I want to prove to you that your future, my future and his future," she pointed to the bedroom where my other self slept, "is not all planned out and the three of us have no say in it at all."

"But Hermione..." she put her finger to my lips to silence me.

"I need to show you that we can make a little bit of a difference Ron. I'm not trying to save any lives or change the course of history that hasn't even been made yet, all I want to do is show you that I can wear blue instead of green one day and it won't change the world as we know it. You can spill your tea one morning and still have the exact same future as you would have if you had never spilled your tea at all. I can write the date on this drawing and you will go home and see my little message from ten years ago and feel as if you have some small control over your own destiny. That's all I want Ron. I want for you to have control of your life back."

I lowered my head. I still felt uneasy about this. She was a hell of a lot cleverer than me that was for sure and I trusted her one hundred percent. My gut instinct was just as wrong as it was right so why was I paying it so much heed right now? I didn't know.

"This is giving me a headache Hermione," I said with another one of my strained worried smiles, "I mean what if I do go back and see that the date was there all along. That will mean that this conversation never happened and that would mean we never did challenge time at all and where the hell does that leave me? What if the version of me who lives with a dated drawing for the next ten years and travels back here never to have this argument with you doesn't end up being this me you're talking to now? Where do I go if I'm not in the right past or the right future? Do you understand what I'm trying to say because my brain's just run off without me and I can't follow it anymore!" I huffed as I dropped my head in my hands.

Hermione put her arms around me and hugged me, making me lift my head to look her in the eye with a weary sigh.

"You're over-thinking things just like you always do Ron."

I blinked at this statement.

"Since when have I ever been accused of over-thinking anything? I'm always being told off for being thoughtless and impulsive!"

She laughed at me and kissed me on the cheek.

"It's your chess genius side of the brain that forced you to think every possible scenario way ahead of time."

I smiled a real smile now and she took my hands in hers on seeing the anxiety dropping away and my shoulders loosening up a little bit.

"Just because you can see what would happen if your opponent made their first move on the left side of the board doesn't mean that that is their game plan. They might move on the right. You, Ronald Weasley will still win the game because...well it's you, but you can't say for sure what move your opponent will make to get to the same end result."

"But it's the differing moves along the way that worry me Hermione I..." she put her finger to my lips again and shushed me.

"I'm asking you to trust me Ron. I am asking you to trust me to write the date on this drawing and not have time collapse all around us. Please let me prove this to you Ron. I wouldn't risk even the slightest thing if I thought there was a chance I could be wrong."

I swallowed and looked back down at the drawing and nodded. She smiled and kissed me again before hugging me and giving me countless reassurances that everything was going to be fine and not to worry. I got up to make us both a cup of tea and not long afterwards my younger self came out of the bedroom stretching out his rested limbs.

"Feeling better?" Hermione asked him as she curled her arms around him and rested her head upon his chest.

"Yeah, sorry about that it's just hit me and wouldn't let up," he said with a smile.

I was about to welcome my other self back when the two of them blurred and the room darkened.

"Ron?" I heard Hermione saying just as my head spun and I realised that I was going back.

As the room and my borrowed clothing drifted away from me I felt the fear hit just as the nausea did and as I reappeared on top of my bed my body arched and I leaned over the side to throw up with anxiety almost as much as travel sickness.

"Ron!" I heard Hermione saying from the bedroom door, she sounded so happy she was on the verge of tears, "Just let it out Ron don't worry about the mess. Oh I'm so glad you're back at last. I'm so...I missed you so much sweetheart don't ever stay away that long again, it's too hard."

She started crying and I wiped my mouth and grabbed her to give her the hug I knew she was going to need.

"Did you get the letters babe?" I asked her as she ran her hands over my back, feeling every little raised scar as if reading my life story in Braille.

"Yes. Thank you so much for that, and the flowers and everything but it wasn't the same as having you here Ron. That was too long, I actually hurt inside can you believe that?"

"I can believe that," I sighed as I felt the guilt of having left my wife all alone for three months at her end.

"I don't want to let go of you," she said with a watery laugh, "I can't let you go. I hope you don't need to pee anytime soon."

I laughed out loud at this and I felt her body shaking as she joined me. I had made it back it seemed, without time having stranded me or the present having changed into something I couldn't recognise anymore. We stayed on that bed for a very long time.

After much kissing and catching up on three months worth of love-making we slept until morning when, at the unimaginable hour of five AM, my stomach roared at me to get out of bed and feed it. I had a piece of toast before running three laps of the park and jumping into the shower. By the time I came out Hermione was brewing the tea and handing me a pint glass of water while I waited.

"I'm going to do a nice unhealthy British fried breakfast in celebration of your first day back, think you can stomach it?" she smiled, knowing that I could stomach almost anything.

"Oh I think I could force myself to have a fired egg or two," I nodded, "some rashers of bacon maybe, sausages, fried bread," she was laughing at me now, "chopped tomatoes and beans...possibly some soldiers to dip in my egg."

"Is that all?" she said with a wicked grin on her face.

"I dunno," I said as I opened the kitchen cupboard, "have we got any brown sauce?"

She shoved me out of the kitchen before turning her attention back to the stove and I bumped into the writing desk and suddenly remembered the drawing she had done of me ten years ago and sat down at the desk. I scanned through the papers and rolls of parchment but couldn't find it anywhere. I frowned. It was usually propped up at the back so she could see it when she was sitting here writing. I moved some books aside to see if it had slipped behind them but it hadn't.

"It didn't cease to bloody exist did it?" I muttered.

"What's that sweetheart?" Hermione called back to me from the kitchen.

"I'm just looking for that picture you drew, the Crookshanks charcoal of me sleeping remember?" I said as I shuffled through more papers in search of the missing portrait.

Hermione walked back into the living room with a frown etched upon her face before bending over and looking in exactly the same places I had just looked.

"Huh, it's always leaning against the back here,I wonder where it went," she pulled the desk forward a little and her eyebrows lifted, "Ah there it is, it fell down the back with some old Christmas cards. _Accio!"_

The fallen papers and cards zoomed into her waiting hand and she passed the sketch to me. I took it and my eyes darted straight to the bottom corner where I had watched Hermione writing the date only the night before and saw nothing.

"Where's the date?" I frowned.

"The what?" Hermione said as she fanned through the papers and tossed them into the waste paper basket.

"The date, I saw you write a date on this after you drew it, we had quite a discussion afterwards remember?"

Hermione blinked and suddenly smiled sheepishly.

"Oh right, that."

"Yes," I said with annoyance, "_that!"_

"Well I was all confident while I was explaining it to you but when you left I got thinking about it and got a little scared. You seemed so sure that I shouldn't and everything you said about not having a future to come back to or you maybe getting lost in time and never coming back to me at all."

I nodded for her to go on, she sat on my lap and stroked my hair.

"Well it was all very well for me to be so sure of myself and send you ten years into the future but the first time my Ron went travelling after that I had this awful feeling that, I don't know...I wondered what if another version of myself tried something similar and you could never come home to me"

She hugged me tightly and I smiled at her, realising that she seemed to have seen my point not long after I had left her that night.

"So I ran to the desk and erased the stupid date so the drawing was just the way you said it should be. You came back about thirty seconds after and, whileI still think that the stupid date and nothing to do with anything, I never tried to challenge time like that again."

I kissed her and sighed with relief that her theory still hadn't been tested.

"I still think we should think about challenging these stupid parameters though Ron," she said as she rose from my lap and took a step toward the kitchen to finish breakfast, "but only when we're both confident that it's safe okay?"

I smiled and nodded. I didn't think there was a way to beat a future I had already seen but now was not the time to get into that argument again.

"Hermione?" I called after her, she leaned back from the stove to meet my eyes, "I'm sorry I had to leave you alone for so long."

She smiled and looked back at the eggs in the frying pan.

"It's like you said all those years ago Ron, you never ever leave me do you?"


	37. 1st March 2024

**1st March 2024**

_1st March 2024 and 4th January 2007 (Ron is 44 and 26, Hermione is 44, Aimez is 4 and 30)_

RON: I was just sitting at the window having quite a pleasant little chat with Cavendish and Davis about who was going to take who's name when they got married in June when Fred hauled me up off my chair and crushed me with his powerful bear hug.

"Happy Birthday Ronniekins!" he said as I tried to punch him into putting me back down but he just seemed to get stronger and the massive grin on his face wider, "You're forty four!"

"Yeah Fred," I managed to say despite my chest being crushed against his own while George laughed at the shell-shocked expression on my face, "I've been keeping count over the years y'know?"

"Forty four!" he laughed and slapped me hard on the back, I really wished I had feet right now so I could give him a swift kick in the bollocks and get him to put me down.

"Um George," I asked my assailant's twin who was hysterically laughing at all of this, "d'you think you could calm your other half down and keep him off the happy juice for a while please?"

George's face was alight with unimaginable joy and his wife Verity just shook her head over his shoulder and mouthed to me that both twins were stone cold sober. I was about to accuse her of being a liar when George threw his arms around the pair of us and yelled out, right into my damn ear I might add, for the whole party to hear.

"My little brother's forty four!"

There was a collective whoop and I resigned myself to another mini celebration of the birthday we all thought would never come. It had been different with each one of them. Bill had grabbed me by the chin and looked me hard in the eye with a stern expression on his face and growled that he knew I was worrying about nothing all these years before ruffling my hair in that patronising older brother way of his and grabbing Fleur into his arms and spinning her around while she squealed to me with delight that I didn't look a day older than thirty. My scars begged to differ I informed her.

Then Charlie had sat beside me on the sofa and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time before giving me a single nod and slapping me on the shoulder. He got up and crossed the room to save his wife Krista from mum's 'when are you two going to give me a grandchild?' conversation.

I was gliding out of the bathroom on a levitation charm three inches off the ground when I bumped into Percy and apologised but he dropped to his knees and started to cry. Fortunately nobody could see as we were partially hidden behind the cloak stand and I gave him a hug and told him not to be such a soft git. I never told him the truth about the trip when I lost my feet but he had managed to work it out for himself and was sporadically begging my forgiveness for not answering the door that icy winter night ever since. I rubbed his back and enlarged my levitation charm to glide us back into the bathroom so Percy could compose himself and not upset his kids, they hate it when he's like that and they get quite emotional themselves. He wished me a happy birthday and declared to me that he never doubted this day would come for a single second.

Ginny hugged me for almost ten minutes before sighing and wiping her eyes and taking James and the twins through to the bedroom to play with all the other nephews and nieces who were running riot in there. While I had been silently reassuring my sister that I was indeed really here Harry had been chatting with mild amusement at the insane platypus hat Luna was wearing and occasionally laughing whenever it tried to start a fight with Hagrid's fur lined jacket. Once Ginny had returned from the bedroom to kiss me on the cheek and wipe her eyes again she joined mum and dad and Harry hauled me into a sudden, strong but short, one armed hug before clearing his throat and not being able to look at me for a couple of minutes. When I did see him looking my way again he raised his glass to me and wished me a happy birthday.

Cam had been typically Cam and shoved me in the back, causing his little boy Alex to chuckle as I wiped the fruit juice I had just spilled down myself from my shirt, and asked me if I would be Alex's godfather.

"...now that you've finally decided that you're sticking around to give your forty-forth year a go," he shrugged as if he'd done nothing more than ask me to pass him a pumpkin pasty.

I found myself with my jaw hanging open and a lump the size of Hagrid's fist in my throat and Cam winked at me before hauling Alex off to join his cousins in the bedroom.

"You don't have to give me your answer right now, you've got plenty of time haven't you?"

Mum had been shaking with suppressed I-don't-know-what as she pursed her lips and flushed in the face before mumbling to me that she knew her guardian angel wouldn't be leaving her so soon. My dad had smiled at me as he put his arm around mum while she sniffed and fought not to burst into tears and said a warm and understated 'happy birthday son' which made me want to kiss the old man on the lips for his ability to tell me everything I'd already heard without saying anything at all. I always thought my dad was a genius.

Frankie was making Neville blush for some bizarre reason, he always confided in me that she reminded him of his gran, something which made me laugh for several days, and he caught my eye with his own slightly intimidated ones and smiled while I snorted with laughter and almost shot pumpkin juice out of my nose. Frankie had been the first to arrive at the party to help Hermione with the preparations while I occupied Aimez in the living room where she insisted upon making decorations. I think I heard Hermione crying and Frankie saying soothing things but I didn't interrupt them. I know this past year has been nothing but fear for Hermione, fear that on this day I wouldn't be with her and Aimez, and she really did need to let all that anxiety out of herself before the party in case there was a small explosion.

Dean, Parvati and their twin boys and twin girls were enjoying the madness of the next generation of Weasleys and wondering if Hogwarts would survive all the offspring of the party guests when they became of school age. Dean predicted some kind of Weasley, Potter, Thomas joint detention that would require the great hall just to accommodate it.

"We will not rest until the Gryfindor quiddich team consists of nothing but Weasleys!" Cam had declared as he lifted his glass and Charlie and Bill nodded their approval enthusiastically.

"Oi!" Harry protested.

"We could make an exception for the Potter-Weasley kids I suppose," Percy shrugged and Ginny laughed and stood at his side while staring at Harry with a pitying shake of the head.

"He's got a point y'know Harry?" she sighed, "I'm still a Weasley after all and I want to see my name represented on the back of those quiddich robes."

Harry narrowed his eyes and pretended to be annoyed.

"I wish I'd never divorced you!" he hissed dramatically before crumpling into laughter, "You'd never have spoken to me like that when you were a Potter."

"No," I laughed, "she wouldn't have wasted her time talking to you, she'd just hit you repeatedly until you gave in."

So now we were back where we started with the two latecomers and their wives and kids.

"My baby brother's gonna be an old man!" Fred said as he continued to crush me with his powerful arms.

They were always exhibitionists but never all that emotionally outgoing, not unless it was for the purposes of a joke anyway, the twins had really surprised me with this jubilantly affectionate greeting.

"Yeah Fred," Charlie was saying from somewhere while I heard my nephews and nieces giggling from the doorway to the bedroom, "but try not to scare him eh? He's looking a little frightened of you both now."

Ginny and Hermione were laughing and Fred plonked me back down onto the chair beside a visibly amused Davis and Cavendish and stepped back while gripping both my shoulders with his hands and lowering his head to look me in the eye. He was still smiling in that insanely un-Fred like way and not the least bit ashamed of it.

"You're forty four Ron," he said, his voice at a reasonable level as he spoke and I nodded and allowed myself to smile now that Fred had calmed himself down a bit.

George was smiling too but his voice was a little lower when he leaned over Fred's shoulder and spoke to me with a slightly choked chuckle.

"There's this rule of brotherhood that you seem to have been trying to ignore Ronniekins."

Fred nodded and swallowed, still fighting to keep the smile on his face.

"Yeah you have and it's time we spelled it out for you little bro."

George was speaking in barely a whisper now as he and Fred leaned in even further and I did the same to hear him while the rest of the guests tried to make as much of their own conversations as possible to let us know our private little moment really was just between the three of us.

"You are the youngest brother y'see?" George said as his hand rested on top of Fred's where it still gripped my shoulder, I nodded, "Being the youngest means you don't die until all of us have died first."

"Thems the rules," Fred nodded sincerely.

What do you say to that? I didn't have a clue.

"I can't afford to pay for all those funerals," I blinked.

As one Fred and George roared with laughter and hugged me again.

"Bloody hell what's wrong with you?" I laughed as I patted the two of them on the back before shoving them away from me and back toward their wives.

"Nothing," George shrugged as he put his arm around Verity and she kissed him on the cheek.

"It's just that my little baby brother's _forty bloody four!" _Fred said as he scooped his boy Sean up and flung him over his shoulder, "Come my son, let us devour every morsel of food your uncle possesses!"

Fred carried the cackling Sean into the kitchen and I exhaled and ran my hand through my hair at this unprecedented display of affection from my demonic brothers. Hermione was beaming as she crossed the room to join me while Davis and Parker went to speak to Hagrid about the amazing job Neville had done on allowing a man his size to floo in through our fireplace without smashing up the living room.

"Well the twins seem to be happy," she said as she snaked her arms around me and rested her head on my chest.

"Oh you think so?" I said with a nonchalant shrug, "I didn't really notice."

She laughed and squeezed me a little tighter while casting a playful scowl up at me. I kissed her and she lowered her head torest upon my chest again while I settled my chin on the top of her head and watched all my friends and family relaxing for the first time all year. It was strange really, we had all be so prepared for the worst all through my forty third year that we were now on a high that we were all out of practice dealing with.

"I love you sweetheart," I heard Hermione murmuring into my chest and I kissed the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair.

"You smell like marzipan," I smiled.

"It's almond conditioner," she laughed.

"I like it," I said as I took another deep inhalation, "I always like it when you smell good enough to eat."

Her body shook with laughter and she looked back up at me and set her chin on my shoulder to render us practically nose to nose now.

"You'd have married a chocolate frog if it was legal wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," I said as if that was a stupid question for her to have asked me, "I happily spend the rest of my life as Mr Chocolate Frog."

Hermione's eyes watered and she almost fell off the chair with the jiggles of her laughter.

"Oh you do know how to make a girl feel wanted," she said as I lifted her onto my lap, "Careful, don't slip off."

"Don't worry love," I said with confidence in my footless balance, "my arse cheeks are gripping the chair as we speak."

Harry had been leaning over to pick up a handful of crisps and his expression was one of disgust and intrigue.

"Don't ask," Charlie warned him as he put an arm around Harry's shoulder and guided him away from the two cackling middle-aged old marrieds who were acting like juvenile newlyweds.

"What? That's a rare gift that is!" I called after my brother and my best friend; "I can pick up pencils if I want to."

Harry looked over his shoulder and snorted.

"Remind me never to borrow a pencil from you!"

Hermione was shaking with laughter again and Aimez skipped across the room to grin up at the two of us.

"Is daddy being silly again?" she asked.

"Me? Never!" I said as if offended by her accusation.

"He is really angel," Hermione said in a theatrical whisper as she slid down from my lap and lifted Aimez up onto me in her place, "here you listen to your silly daddy while I go and get him something to eat."

Hermione smiled at me before turning and heading out to the kitchen to see if Fred and his boys had left any food for us. Aimez gave me one of her hundred galleon cuddles and kissed me on the cheek with her lips that were sticky from sweets.

"Yeach!" I said and she giggled and rubbed at my face with her fingers, "Don't do that, they're even gooier than your mouth!"

"Stop it!" she chuckled.

"You stop it," I said as I found her ticklish spot just beneath her chin, causing her to squeal.

The doorbell rang and I let up on the tickle torture of my daughter to watch my mum open the door and let Ben in.

"Ah now Aim," I said while watching Ben being wrestled out of his jacket by both my mother and Frances while his wife Jennifer looked on in amusement, "remember all those times I warned you about the men in white coats who'll come and take you away if you act like too much of a nutter?"

Aimez nodded and I pointed across the room to Ben who was shaking his head and smirking.

"Well he's one of them!"

Aimez giggled and Ben pointed over his shoulder to his jacket, which was a tan colour, and then back at me while mouthing to Aimez that daddy was a liar.

"It's not white!" Aimez said as she turned to me with wide eyes.

"Well he's off duty isn't he?" I said as I struggled not to break into a smile, "I dunno about you Aim but I'm going to be watching him."

To my delight Aimez narrowed her eyes and nodded her head before looking back at Ben and wagging her finger at him.

"We're watching you," she warned.

Ben rolled his eyes while Bill and Fleur laughed at this little exchange. Hermione came back with a plate stacked full of food and I slid Aimez back down to the floor. She ran into the bedroom to tell all her cousins about the man in the white coat who had come in disguise as a normal person in a tan jacket and Hermione sat down beside me with a curious look on her face.

"Why do I get the feeling you've been stirring up trouble while I was gone?" she asked.

"Me?" I said and tried to look innocent.

"Oh now I know you're up to mischief, you're pulling the innocent face."

The party went on in pretty much the same way for the next three hours and I ended up sneaking out. We had a magically enchanted muggle wheelchair for me whenever I left the flat. Muggles would see nothing odd about me trundling down the street while in reality I was gliding along on a levitation charm and not having to turn the wheels or even feel the bumpy road beneath me. I know I'm supposed to stay on the pavement but there's less dog shit on the road and I hate having to clean up after I wheel through that stuff.

I had seen one of the culprits from the window a couple of weeks back and corked it's bum with a flick of my wand but Hermione had gone mental about using magic in front of a muggle and undone the spell before the dog's owner had even noticed anything amiss. I didn't see anything wrong with what I had done, the guy didn't see it after all, and grumbled asthe dog went ahead and shat on the pathway right outside our flat while the owner didn't bat an eyelid.

Our street was relatively quiet anyway; I wheeled up and down it all the time when I wanted some fresh air. I would wave to a couple of the people I used to nod to when I went running. One of them had almost run into a tree the first time I went outside the flat in my chair. He recovered and crossed the street to ask what had happened to me and tell me that they had been wondering where I had disappeared to of a morning. Hermione had told me to tell Muggles it had been a skiing accident while we were on holiday so that was what I told him. He had been mortified for me and I had told him not to worry. For the first few weeks the runners used to wave at and look away with pity for me but then they had got a little more comfortable with seeing me around and would chat when they paused for warm ups or warm downs at the gate.

"Ron!" I heard Hermione calling after me as I glided along the street.

She was running after me and I turned the chair to face her and waited for her to catch me up.

"Where are you going sweetheart?" she frowned.

"Nowhere, just up and down the street a couple of times, you know me."

She smiled and took one of my hands in hers.

"Mind if I tag along?"

I pulled at her hand and she squealed as she fell into my lap. I shoved us off down the street.

"Your carriage will take you anywhere madam," I declared in a very formal voice, "well not up or down any stairs but you know what I mean don't ya?"

She laughed and put her arms around me as we glided along the middle of the road slowly.

"I'll never understand why you don't take your chair into the park," she sighed, "the scenery's got to be a lot nicer than out here."

I shook my head and tangled my fingers in her bushy brown hair that was now streaked with a little steely grey here and there.

"The park was where I ran. I may be over the whole immobility thing but I still don't exactly want to rub my own nose in it either."

She pushed my hair back from my face and looked at me as if she was searching for signs of a dark mood coming over me but I really was fine and she soon saw that for herself.

"Still," she said with a shrug before resting her head upon my shoulder and interlacing our fingers absent-mindedly, "I don't know why you stick so rigidly to the middle of the road all the time."

I smiled and turned my head to kiss her as we glided onward.

"A very clever woman who would never waste her time doing something utterly frivolous once told me she walked in the middle of the road whenever she wanted to be found. If she walked on the pavement she was just another person on the pavement and if she walked in the park then she was another person going for a stroll in the park but if she walked up and down the middle of this road the person she was waiting for would always show up eventually."

I felt Hermione snuggle in closer to me.

"A very clever woman told you this you say?"

I nodded.

"And she was told that by a very stupid man!"

Hermione began to laugh and I spun the chair around to head back the way we had come.

"So whose advice are you taking the clever woman or the stupid man?" Hermione smiled.

"I think it's like one of my time loops actually," I pondered, "the clever woman is clever enough to know that the stupid man is so stupid he'd need to see her walking up and down in the middle of the road in order to get his attention. The stupid man is stupid enough to tell the clever woman this so whenever she's lonely now she walks up and down this bloody road until he comes."

I knew what I was talking about. I wondered if Hermione did.

"So you've seen the clever woman waiting for the stupid man then have you?" she asked me.

"I've kept her company a few times yeah," I shrugged, "just until the stupid man shows up."

"Does the stupid man ever show up?" she said as she turned on my lap and looked me in the eye.

"There are stupid men everywhere," I smiled.

Hermione batted my arm and climbed off my lap with a shake of the head.

"I hate cryptic Ron conversations I always want to beat you about the head with a pillow afterwards."

I laughed at this as Hermione looked back to the flat all the way down the other end of the street.

"Are you coming back inside now?" she said when she looked back at me.

"Yeah, I'll just glide on back and rejoin the 'Ron's an old geezer' festivities," I grinned.

Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss me on the lips.

"Well I'll go and get the stairs to smooth out for you, they should be ready by the time you get there okay?"

I nodded and pulled her down to me again and gave her a real kiss. My chair hovered in the stationary position as we partook in a public display of affection which was very out of character for both of us. Hermione broke away from the embrace with a quizzical smile and stroked my cheek with her palm.

"What was that for?" she asked as she got up again and took a reluctant step back.

"Just 'cause I love you," I shrugged.

I watched as she flushed and began to trot back along the street to the flat and make it accessible for me and the chair to get back inside. I heard a siren behind me somewhere and turned to look over my shoulder in time to see a fire engine passing the road behind me. The blur of flashing lights hit me before my instinct to close my eyes and block it out and I felt the colours of the street merge into one big blur just as my stomach flipped and I spilled out of the chair.

I didn't hit the road though, instead I fell face down onto a bed of twigs and thorns in the dead of night.

"Oh shite," I hissed to myself as my nudity meant pointy things were sticking in places that really didn't like pointy things.

Was I in the forbidden bloody forest again?

"Everybody keep quiet. I think I heard something moving over there."

The voice was whispering from somewhere outside the thicket and I peered through to see Davis, Cavendish, Eldridge, Parker, Boyer, Harry and myself all poised and pointing wands into the woods. It felt as if I had been hollowed out and refilled with ice-cold water.

"No," I whispered as I began to drag myself along the rough ground as fast but as quietly as I could, "no this can't be the badger day."

The bushes shook as I pulled myself past them and twigs beneath me snapped noisily. I chanced a glance back through the undergrowth.

"Let's just ask Agent Weasley what it is," Parker was saying, "I mean he does have all the answers doesn't he?"

Oh Godric please don't let this happen. Not the dead badger, not Boyer and the badger please no. I tried to keep as low as I could but that made it impossible for me to move with nothing but my stumps shoving me along from behind. My only chance was to hide.

"Shut up Parker, I'm trying to listen," Davis was hissing while they all covered the woods with their wands and my younger self and Harry began to have a heated debate under their breath.

I found a thick bushy area and crawled into it, snapping and crunching beneath me sounding as loud as a thousand wet start fireworks to me right then and there. I threw myself flat to the ground and held my breath while begging whatever greater power had made my life into this cruel joke to give me a break just this once.

"Just this once let things be different, please," I whispered into the ground, "I've got a little girl, my little baby, she needs me please don't let this happen."

My eyes stung and my vision began to blur. I dared to hope, the nausea was coming too. I was going back. I had panicked enough to send me back.

"Faster!" I demanded of myself.

"It never stops!" I heard my other self roaring at Harry and a sudden flash ripped through the thicket and sliced my gut open as if it was nothing more than orange peel being torn away from the juicy flesh beneath while roosting birds left the canopy of the trees at the sudden activity below.

I let out an agonised gurgle of a scream as I felt the warmth pouring out of me at the same moment the woods were pulled out of my blurred vision and replaced by the familiar sight of my street. I was lying on my side and my blood was pouring out of me, pumping with every rapid beat of my heart but I was feeling strangely numb in that area now. The pain had gone and my fingers were like ice as they tried to put pressure to the massive wound but it was too deep and even my huge hands weren't large enough to cover it.

I saw my chair floating onward along the road without me in it and knew that Hermione was just feet away, wand out and fixing the stairs for me to go back to the party. Oh Godric the party. My family were all here, Aimez was there, she couldn't see me like this.

"Aim," I whimpered and I turned my head to face down into the black road surface, "she's just a baby. I can't leave my baby."

"Dad."

I felt a warm hand stroking my hair away from my face and blinked away the tears that flooded my eyes to look up into the face of my girl, my life, my Aimez.

"I don't want to leave you," I choked as the adult version of my daughter lifted me into her lap and smiled down at me.

"You don't dad," she said softly before holding me tightly to her.

"Badgers!" I suddenly realised that I had to do something before all the life drained out of me completely.

"What?" Aimez frowned down at me.

"You've got to tell me, the next me you see before January 2007, to stop Harry from firing that curse into the woods. You've got to promise me you'll do this Aimez," I pleaded with her.

"I promise dad I swear, January 2007, stop Uncle Harry firing a curse into the woods."

"It can't be him that kills me," I said as my whole body began to shake, "he'll work it out and he'll know. You mustn't forget to tell me this."

"Dad I won't now don't worry about the past okay, you don't have to deal with that anymore alright? Shhh," she leaned over me and kissed my tear sodden cheek before beginning to sing our time loop song with the sweetest little voice I had ever heard in my life, _"If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear. For I've never known completeness like being here. Wrapped in the warmth of you, loving every breath of you. Still my heart this moment, oh it might burst."_

I fumbled for her hand with my numb fingers.

_"Could we stay right here_," she sang on, her voice quivering as her eyes shone with unshed tears, "_'till the end of time, 'till the earth stops turning? Wanna love you 'till the seas runs dry..._" her angelic voice wavered.

"I'm sorry Aimez," I sniffed as I gripped her hand as hard as I could.

"You've nothing to be sorry about dad. You never let me down, you never disappointed me, and I love you now more than ever okay?"

"But I'm not there!" I yelped.

"You're _everywhere!_" she laughed while a tear rolled down her cheek, "You're at every one of my birthdays dad, you've yet to miss a bloody one of them, and you come every Christmas Day and I see you practically every month. You know you do. You've already done it."

My breath rattled in my chest and I couldn't shake the incredible shiver that was deep inside my bones.

"Really?" I shuddered.

"Really," Aimez nodded, "You gave me away at my wedding dad, remember that? You always know when I need you and there you are. You are the greatest dad in the word and I never get the chance to miss you because you never left me once, not for one second dad."

She was crying silently now and I heard a scream at the end of the road. It was Hermione.

"Mum's coming," Aimez smiled down at me.

"She knows I keep my promise right?" I ask Aimez.

"She knows dad, she knows."

Something stopped working inside me and the world around me began to darken just as Aimez leaned over me and kissed me again on the cheek.

"Aim?" I couldn't see her any more.

"I love you daddy," I heard her sob.

"I'm tired," I gasped.

"No more travelling dad," she was saying, he voice sounded so clear but miles away, "you've reached journey's end at last."

I only had one breath left in me so I had to make it count.

"I'll be waiting for you both."

HERMIONE: Ron was taking his time, the charm on the stairs was almost spent, and I'd have to top it up again in a second or two.

"Hermione?" Harry said as he stepped out onto the porch with Ginny at his side and Bill following them to see where everybody was disappearing to.

"Where's Ron?" Ginny frowned.

"Taking his sweet time," I huffed, "Harry do me a favour and smooth over the stairs for his chair while I go and tell him to get a move on?"

Harry pulled his wand out from his pocket and nodded.

"Sure."

Just as I was about to set off down the stairs Ginny looked horrified and pointed over my shoulder. I spun around to see Ron's empty chair gliding along past the front gate.

"Oh no," I gasped and I ran down the steps hoping he hadn't fallen out or gone travelling.

It was then I saw them. My husband covered in blood at the far end of the street cradled in the arms of the unmistakeable adult version of my little girl Aimez.

_"No!" _I screamed as I began to run to them.

This couldn't be happening. He had survived, he was forty-four for Merlin's sake, we had beaten time. We had outsmarted it; we had won. I couldn't run fast enough to get to him. There was so much blood, I could see it now, and Aimez was crying and kissing him on the cheek.

"No Ron no!" I screamed again as I kicked my impractical party shoes from my feet to get there faster.

Aimez looked up at me and began to break down just as the clothes she was wearing crumpled into a heap at Ron's side and I dropped to my knees, grazing them both slightly in the process, and put both my hands to the bloody wound that exposed Ron's insides to the world outside.

"Ron please don't do this to me. You can't, you promised me remember?" I said to his still face.

I heard pounding footsteps behind me but couldn't tear my eyes away from the sickeningly white face and the glassy blue eyes that stared skywards, unblinking. There was no pain registered in his expression. No breath lifting his chest up and down. I lowered my head to put my ear against his chest and listened. There was no heartbeat.

_Where was my beautiful lullaby, where had my lullaby gone?_

"Why did you stop playing my lullaby Ron?" I sobbed.

I pulled his limp body up to cradle him in my arms just as I seen Aimez doing such a little while ago and held him to me. He was so cold and heavy. Where was the warm strong body that I had been holding just a minute earlier? How could he be so cold and empty now? How could he have left me so suddenly? How could he have left me at all?

Harry was on his knees at my side now and flicking his wand at Ron's stomach but he knew as well as I did that it was too late.

"_Sano!"_ Harry yelled, "_Sano, sano, sano!_ Please Ron don't let this be it, please. _SANO!"_

"Oh Godric," Bill's voice sounded as small and lost as his little grandson Alex when he was woken from a nap.

"Somebody get Ben!" Harry bellowed at the top of his lungs down the street where other Weasley's and friends were pouring out, no doubt after hearing my screams.

"Harry it's t-too," Ginny was shaking and almost grey in the face as she staggered and Bill caught her and eased them both down to the ground, "it's too late," she managed to say before dropping her face into her hands and crying loudly."

I could hear all the different screams and cries and yells but all I could do was rock the lifeless body in my arms and whisper pleas not to leave me into his vivid red hair.

"Uncle Ron?" Cam's voice was an echo of Bill's own.

"Cam no!" Bill was roaring while clinging to Ginny, "I don't want you to see this."

Cam was already there; he was already seeing it. Harry got to his unsteady feet and shoved Cam back as he tried to kneel beside his uncle and his best friend in the world while straining to hold in his own emotions.

"Cam your dad's right go back inside."

"I'm not a kid!" Cam snapped while his eyes flooded with tears.

"But your cousins are Cam," Bill said firmly, "your cousins and Alex, he needs his dad, you don't want Alex to see this do you?"

Cam seemed to shudder and pulled back from Harry's hold, shaking his head furiously.

"And Aimez," Harry was saying, "you can't let Aimez come out here Cam you've got to go back to the flat and keep them all away please."

Cam looked as if he was about to explode with several emotions at once but instead he swallowed them all down and nodded before turning on his heel and running back to the flat at top speed.

Harry took Ginny from Bill and the two of them broke down on each others shoulders while Bill staggered away to be caught in Fleur's embrace. Others had gathered now but their words and their cries weren't needed or noticed by me. Ben arrived but hadn't even taken out his wand. The damage was not only irreparable but over and done with. He placed his hand upon Ron's forehead and began to move it downwards. I yanked Ron's body away from him and screamed, rendering the weeping gathering silent.

"Don't you dare close his eyes!"

Ben fell backwards at the force of my voice and sat, somewhat shaken, on the road and stared at me.

There was silence for ten seconds or so while I held my husband to me undisturbed and blocked out the sounds of Molly wailing into Arthur's chest about her baby being taken from her. I was shaken out of my little universe that included only Ron and me by the sound of a huge skip being thrown across the street and crashing into the metal railings of the park followed by a colossal roar. Hagrid was panting and looking around for something else to take his grief out on but Percy grabbed him and tried to calm him down. In the end Hagrid had to calm down in order to hold Percy up as his whole body shook and fell against Hagrid's huge stomach.

Charlie was sitting on the kerb with his head in his hands in total silence while his wife Krista held onto Verity and Pippa as they shared a three-way hug. Fred's wife Claire struggled to console her husband who was beyond devastation and George was in a similar state being comforted by Neville and Luna. Somewhere Cavendish and Davis were doing their best to keep the muggles out of this whole awful mess.

"Hermione you've a little one who needs that hug more than Ron does right now," I heard Frances saying softly as her firm but gentle hand settled upon my shoulder.

"No I can't leave him," I said as my grip on his ice-cold torso tightened and my tear-streaked cheek pressed against his clammy pale one.

"He's not there any more dear," Frances said in the kindest but most clinical voice I had ever heard her use, "this isn't our chap. This is that beaten old body that held him back."

"No!" I shook my head and stroked his soft red hair; it seemed so intense against his porcelain skin.

"Hermione my dear, he let it go and now it's time for you to do the same. Isn't that what he would say?" Frances persisted.

I felt her other hand resting upon my arm, not pulling me away from Ron but simply suggesting I let go with a firm stroke of her hand.

"He promised me," I whimpered at such a low tone I was surprised anybody had even heard me.

"I know dear and he never told you a lie did he?" Frances said as she eased my grip on him just a little so I was now looking down upon his face as his head rested in my lap.

"But he promised me he'd never leave me," I said, anger flowing through my veins now as I looked into his wide blue eyes.

"And who are we to say he has?" Frances soothed, her own voice sounding slightly shaken now.

I put my hand upon his cheek and moved it up to slide his messy hair back from his face. Had he just told me that lie to get me to shut up all those years ago? His face when he had come back to me that night, I could see it now, he was so happy. He told me he had seen it. He told me he never left me and never would.

"You promised me!" I screamed down at him and my voice echoed around the empty street, "You promised me you'd never leave me, how could you do this to me Ron? How could you leave me?"

Frances grabbed me and held me in her arms while Ben moved to close Ron's eyes once more. I watched as he did and crumpled into the old woman's arms at the finality of it. That was it; his eyes were closed and would never open again. He'd never look at me with that amazing light of mischief or glow of love or fire of passion. I'd never see that stunning deep blue again, not even in Aimez's eyes. I cursed that she had my eyes and then screamed another wave of tears that my little girl had lost her daddy.

"Aimez, what do I tell her?" I wailed, "She's only four years old Frankie. How do you tell a four year old who worships her daddy that he's never coming back?"

Molly was screaming again and Arthur was trying to guide her away from everybody.

"Hermione don't worry about that just now alright?" Harry was saying while clutching a trembling Ginny to him as if he was terrified to let her go, "We'll tell her what she knows and that's that her daddy goes travelling for weeks sometimes doesn't he?"

I looked at my best friend and saw the complete and total devastation in his eyes, framed by the rims of his glasses, and managed to nod.

"We'll just tell Aimez and all the kids that Ron's travelling until we can all get our heads around handling this," Harry said, seeming to direct this to everybody around but still staring into my eyes.

"He..." I shuddered involuntarily before continuing, "...left me."

Frances was pulling me up to my feet and forcibly guiding me back along the street. I turned and saw Ben covering Ron up with an item he had just summoned from the overturned skip, it looked like curtain or something, and I felt my legs crumple beneath me. Frances struggled to hold me up and then strong arms lifted me off my feet and Charlie was carrying me. His eyes were swollen and his face was set in a mask of detachment. He didn't seem able to look down at me as he spoke.

"When Ron's feet died we didn't go around declaring part of him was dead too did we?" he said stiffly, "Don't look back at that body Hermione, that's not our boy."

"Then where is my boy Charlie?" I said with a broken voice.

There was no answer to that.

* * *

_A/N Okay so I cried writing that! It might not be that it's that great a piece of writing but that I'm a complete and utter daddy's girl and my dad's name is Ron. Either way I was a mess writing this and I hope that doesn't show in a detrimental way._

_Much credit goes to the band **Lamb** for my third round of quoting their beautiful song **Gorecki**._

_So I've finally done it...after ten fics and all sorts of nasty devices I have finally killed off Ron. I hope the next chapter makes you all understand how I could have done it and not feel dreadful for doing so._

_Shari_


	38. The Resurrection of the Badger

**The Resurrection of the Badger**

_"The badger lives?" I said, wondering what kind of mystical badger he had managed to find with regenerative powers, "The resurrection of the badger!" I raised both my arms in celebration and the startled looking man smiled at me._

* * *

_14th April 2025 (Ron is 20, Hermione is 45)_

RON: I had been fortunate enough to nab a full set of clothing from a washing line and would maybe have passed for a normal guy on the street if it hadn't been for the bright green flip flops I was wearing on my feet.

I saw Hermione walking along the centre of our street and ran, as fast as a man can run in ill-fitting flip flops, to join her.

"Hey there babe, don't laugh at the shoes, they're all I could manage," I grinned as I walked alongside her.

She smiled at me. I didn't think I'd made her jump by creeping up on her as running in flip flops turns out to be quite a noisy thing to do, and I wondered if I'd arrived at a bad time for her.

"When am I then?" I said after walking quietly for a few seconds.

"2025, April the fourteenth."

Bloody hell, I'll be forty-five in under a month, no wonder she looks depressed, we're getting old.

"When are you coming from?" she asked me.

"May 2000, I just turned twenty, all grown up now."

She chuckled.

"Yes you look extraordinarily mature...in your flip flops."

Yes! I'd made her laugh; she really looked like she needed one.

"Um Hermione?"

"Yes Ron."

"Why are you walking down the centre of the road?"

She gave me an enigmatic smile, why can't I be more enigmatic? I must hone my enigma skills in front of the mirror when I get back home.

"You told me to."

I blinked.

"Why, have I gone mad?"

She laughed again before quickly looking away. I wondered if we'd had a fight or something.

"No, it's complicated, you'll explain it to me better than I can ever explain it to you. Besides, you always find me when I'm out here."

Oh good, she wants me to be able to find her. She must still like me.

"So where are you going?" I ask her, finding that small talk is preferable to the slapping sound of rubber against the souls of my feet.

"Nowhere, I just like to walk occasionally that's all."

I find this quite bizarre logic for Hermione.

"Surely you'd prefer the park for a walk wouldn't you?"

She turned to look at me with a sideways glance and still seemed unhappy. What the hell is wrong with her?

"You'd never look for me in the park though would you?"

She stopped walking and faced me while taking a bracing breath and smiling with a little less sadness this time.

"So how are you doing Ron?"

"Me? I'm fine, it's been a couple of years now but I'm kinda getting used to it."

She shook her head and sighed before letting out an amused laugh.

"Oh my you're still so young aren't you?"

"Did you not hear me? I just turned twenty. I'm getting old!"

She rested her palm on my cheek and stroked my skin with her thumb.

"Are you happy?" she whispered.

This made me worry about her. I took her hand in both of mine.

"Are you unhappy?" I ask.

"No," she sighed, a smile on her face that made her glow from the inside illuminating her whole face, "not as long as you're here."

I pulled her toward me and gave her a tight cuddle that lasted for ages. We rocked from side to side and I felt her hands on my back, she was really clinging to me and I let her, and I was glad no cars came along to interrupt us. Eventually she looked up at me and pushed my hair back from my eyes with her slender fingers.

"How do you even see through all that hair?"

I roll my eyes and tut.

"You sound like mum."

"Ah she never did like you when you were scruffy did she?"

"Did?" I tense up, I hate the past tense when it refers to my future, "she never _did_?"

Hermione picked up on my panic immediately and shakes her head.

"Oh no Ron, she's fine, everybody's fine and alive and healthy don't worry about that. It's...It's your hair that's in the past tense. You cut it eventually."

I don't like the sound of this.

"Oh no!" I groan, "What d'you mean? Not _neat_?" I say the word neat as if it's a swear word.

She laughs out loud at me and ruffles my untidy mop of hair.

"Well for you!"

I take that to mean I'm still somewhat unkempt and give her an 'I can live with that' shrug. We set off down the road once again.

"So come on," I nudge her after a while, "why are you so blue? You can't fool me."

"I," she begins and pauses as she stares at me for a moment, "I just miss you that's all."

"Is that it?" Am I gone at this end as well?" I nodded my understanding, "I've been crossing over a lot recently."

She flinches.

"Crossing over?"

"Yeah y'know? Travelling into a place that my other self has travelled out of."

She nods and swallows.

"Yes, you've crossed over."

I take her hand and walk with her some more. We reach the end of the road and stop, turning to face each other.

"So have I been gone a while then? My Hermione hates it when I'm gone all day."

She looks right into me in a really unnerving way.

"You'll leave her for longer than that Ron. You can be gone for days at a time sometimes, weeks, months...it gets lonely."

I understand now and pull her into another hug.

"How long have I been gone for you?"

She sounds muffled but I can clearly hear her answer.

"Too long. A day is too long and you've been gone longer than that."

I stroke her hair and rub small circles on her back. I think she's crying but I decide not to make an issue of it. We hold each other and I sigh the occasional 'shhh' into the top of her head until she looks up suddenly and takes my lips as if they were water to her own parched ones. She pulls me down lower and holds the back of my head so I can't pull away from her. I don't want to pull away from her, she's my Hermione, and I kiss her back, which causes her to moan just a little. I break away to take a breather and as we both take in some much-needed air our lips still touch. Hers begin to move and she whispers into me.

"I love you so much."

My Hermione and me say it to each other but we're not really gushers, we both know and don't like to throw the expression about every two minutes. It's as if it cheapens the whole sentiment.

"I love you, you know I do don't you?" I feel her lips forming a smile against my own and she nods her head just slightly, "In any time and every time I love you okay?"

She kisses me again, trailing kisses down my neck before resting her head against my chest.

"There's my lullaby," she whispers with contentment.

My stomach growls in the loudest possible way and we both crumple with laughter.

"Typical of you to ruin a good moment with your appetite!" she said with a shake of the head.

"I'm a growing boy!"

"Funny you were an old man earlier."

"I'm regressing," I chuckled.

"Oh Godric I've missed you so much!" she sighed as if letting go of an enormous burden.

I can't help but frown.

"How long have I been gone? You never did say."

"I mean the young you, when you were like this," she looked at me as if I was an old school friend she hadn't seen in years and beamed.

"Have I grown old really badly?" I asked, a little anxious as to why my future wife is all over the bachelor version of me, "Am I fat? Oh Merlin, I'm not bald am I?"

She howled with laughter.

"Why is it that whenever the under twenty five version of you comes to a world where you're over forty the first thing you demand to know, after the date of course, is 'am I bald'?"

"Well it's a valid question."

"Forty isn't that old Ron."

"Have you seen my dad?" I ask incredulously.

"You don't go bald Ron..._ever!_ I've seen you at every age in your lifetime and you will never be bald. You are always scruffy though!"

"Am I always hungry?"

"You're hungry at any time you're not eating."

I laughed at this.

"Was that a not-so-subtle hint that you want to go somewhere for food?" she asked me with an arched eyebrow.

I shrug and offer her my arm.

"Come on, let's go and get Cajun food."

"Why Cajun?" she frowned at me.

"Because I don't know what it is and it feels wrong that there's a food that exists that I haven't eaten."

She took my arm and gave it a tight squeeze while chuckling.

"I don't think there is a Cajun restaurant around here sweetheart."

Sweetheart? Does she call me sweetheart in the future? I wasn't sure if I liked that.

"Ron?" she looked up at me with concern.

I stopped walking and forced myself to meet her eyes.

"You don't call me sweetheart," I said uncomfortably and I saw her get this look on her face as if she knew what my problem was before I had even said it, "Lavender...That's a Lavender thing."

She curled both arms around me and rested her chin upon my chest while gazing up at me with those huge brown eyes of hers.

"Lavender does not own the rights on loving you Ronald Weasley. And I do y'know? I love you more than I'll ever be able to tell you. You are a sweetheart, you are my sweetheart and I will call you what I damn well want to."

I let out a strained laugh at this little speech and hugged her back.

"I just never thought I'd be able to hear somebody use that word without feeling ill inside."

"Do you feel ill now sweetheart?" she said as she stood on tiptoes and brushed her lips against mine.

"No."

We kissed in the middle of the street for long enough to make me light-headed from lack of oxygen and I decided to draw her attention back to my insatiable need for food.

"So what do we have at the flat? You know me babe, I can make a banquet from a bunch of leftovers."

"Well all I can think you might be able to put together is steak smeared with peanut butter," she shrugged apologetically.

"We could call that Cajun," I say optimistically.

She tugged at my arm and pulled me out of the road and towards our flat so fast that I lose one of my flip-flops.

"Hold up, I've lost one of me flippers!" I exclaim.

"You won't need it," she said with a determined tone of voice, "come on."

* * *

_6th November 2024 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 45)_

HERMIONE: I was taking a bath. I sank down under the water and came back up to see a white glowing Jack Russell terrier peering over the edge of the tub at me.

I felt my heart leap into my throat and force a squeal and a gasp out of me at the same time. It was Ron's patronus. Ron's patronus was wagging its tail and spinning around excitedly in my bathroom.

With an enormous splash I rose up from the tub and jumped out, slipping on the wet floor and nearly breaking my neck as I landed, and ran. I was naked, dripping wet and my hair was thick with suds but I didn't care. I followed the dog as it ran ahead of me, along the hallway and into the bedroom, and I froze with pain and joy at the sight of a naked Ron looking through the wardrobe for something to put on.

"Ron?"

My voice had barely even been there. It was a scream inside my head that came out as barely a breath but he still heard it and gave me that carefree smile of his that I had been missing so badly for the past six months now.

"Hey there babe, where are all my clothes? I can't find a thing..." he began but my need to touch him overcame my need to hide the heartbreak I was feeling and I flung myself at him and burst into tears before he could finish his sentence, "...hey come on Hermione. What's wrong? Are you okay?"

I began to cover his face with kisses and run my slippery hands all over his body to reassure myself that he was really there. It was really him back from the dead and looking so young and so well.

"How old are you?" I said as I began to laugh and cry at the same time.

He smiled that smile again. It was the kind of smile he used to reserve for times when he wasn't following my logic but going along with it anyway.

"I just turned nineteen, why what year is it now?"

I shushed him and pulled him against me to keep his questions at bay with a long kiss. I knew he'd work it out soon enough and I didn't want him to know. He was so young. It wouldn't be fair to him if he found out what date he no longer existed in. He broke away and looked down at my still dripping body.

"You know usually it's just me that appears naked when you least expect it," he grinned.

I laughed for the first time in months.

"I was in the bath."

"Yeah I kind of guessed that."

His smile, I couldn't stop myself from just drowning myself in his smile again; he wouldn't stop smiling at me. I stole another kiss and hugged him against me again.

"Don't you want a blanket or something?" he was saying with some concern in his voice now, "You'll get cold."

He was just as naked as I was and yet all he could think about was that I might be cold. I couldn't let myself cry. I couldn't let him know that it ends all too soon for him. I couldn't take his entire future away from him like that; he was just a kid for Merlin's sake.

"It's only cold when you're not around," I found myself saying before I could stop myself.

He went quiet. I cursed myself and realised that he was adding it all up inside his head.

"Hermione?"

"Please don't ask me any questions," I begged him.

He rubbed my back and squeezed me tight before saying the words I hated so much.

"I'm dead aren't I?"

I broke down and looked up into his wide vivid blue eyes, the eyes that I had almost lost all reason over when I saw them being closed for the very last time, and stroked his oh-so-messy hair away from his face. I kissed his unresponsive lips. He wanted an answer; I didn't want to give it to him. I pulled his head down so I could look him in the eye directly.

"I miss you so much. You've been gone...you've been travelling," I lied to save him, he was only nineteen and had just pulled himself out of his self destructive alcoholic phase and was soon to be put through the ringer with Lavender and then Seamus, I couldn't take his life away from him, "you've been travelling for such a long time Ron and I hoped I'd get to see you this way. I hoped you'd come to visit and keep me company while I waited for you to come back to me but I waited and waited and you never came. You always came to...Well never mind that but you never came to me."

He wouldn't formally meet Aimez for another year or so; I would have to keep that from him too. I had been living vicariously through her ever since March. He had come to her and explained all about the nature of life and death on the afternoon of his own funeral. She had told him that her puppy had died, already so wise that she knew not to tell him he was dead, and he comforted her about it and when I had come back with Harry and Ginny practically holding me up on either side she had run to me and declared.

_"Daddy's never going to be dead mummy!"_

"I miss you Ron, I love you and I was so scared I'd never be able to see you again and hold you like this. You've been away so long."

He softened towards me and stroked my hair, shushing me and rocking me in his arms.

"I don't want to talk about you leaving me," I sniffed, "I don't want to remember how you left me. I just want to lay with you on the bed until you have to go back again. I just want to be with you."

"That's okay babe," he said comfortingly as he lifted me up and carried me over to the bed, "I don't want to know the future, I've never made you tell me before have I?" I shook my head, "I'm not going to start now."

As he set me down and lay beside me I felt a tingle all over my skin. Hope fills my heart and I take his hand in mine.

"Is this the oldest you've ever seen me Ron? Tell me all the other times you've seen me."

He notices that I'm shaking and seems to think I'm cold, pulling the blankets over the both of us while beaming his life-affirming grin at me.

"I've seen you loads of times babe, and I've only been at this lark for about a year so far, you'll get sick of the sight of me Hermione I swear."

I laugh while the tears continue to stream and I feel glad to have my back to him right now. I feel his breath on my shoulder and his lips pressing against my skin.

"You promise?" I ask.

"I swear," he chuckles.

I turn over and hold on to him tightly. We move into each other, our shapes still fit together just as perfectly as they always had, and I breathe in his scent.

"What's the oldest you've seen me?" I ask with a delighted sob.

"Hermione what kind of man do you think I am? I never ask a lady her age!"

I laugh and shake him to tell me what I want to know.

"You had grey hair," he said as his eyes stared off into nowhere while he got lost in the memory, "no it wasn't grey it was white, and it was tied back. You had so many lines around your eyes that I couldn't even count them if I tried and you were still beautiful. You were still as beautiful as you are now and as you are back where I'm from."

I kissed him twice on those wonderful lips as they continue to say more of those wonderful things to me.

"You showed me pictures of your grandchildren, _our_ grandchildren, and you and I walked along the beach. We'll live at the beach Hermione and we'll be really happy."

"You don't stop coming to see me? You never leave me?" I said, knowing now where Ron had come back from that night when he had made me that promise that I thought he had broken on his forty fourth birthday.

"I never leave you."

"You'll always be with me?"

"I always have been, always will be."

I looked into his clear blue eyes, the eyes so full of life and mischief and love that had been so dead and empty the last time I had looked into them.

"You promise?"

"I don't have to promise," he said as he kissed me on the lips with a smile, "I know."

* * *

_18th August 2064 (Ron is 40, Hermione is 84)_

HERMIONE: He was overjoyed when he realised that he had finally come to Walton in the summer season and had threatened me with the bumper cars but I had thankfully talked him out of it. Instead he had lifted me onto the merry-go-round and bought me ice cream before ordering me to dip my toes into the sea, as it wasn't a visit to the beach if you didn't get your feet wet apparently.

He had carried me all the way home. I told him to take my wheelchair but he glared at it and declared that he wasn't talking some old woman out for a wheel; he was taking his wife out for some fun. It had made my heart ache to think that he was soon to be restricted to a wheelchair himself, when he allowed himself to use it at all, and I had agreed to let him carry me the whole way just for the sake of enjoying him being so strong and fit and able.

He set me down on the swing chair I had crafted out of iron with both magical and muggle techniques before going into the kitchen to make us both lunch. My Ron, my husband had been with me for a whole week now. He was only gone from me all those decades ago for five minutes. I had slept with my head settled on his chest every night for a whole week. I had woken to watch him sleeping at my side for seven blissful mornings. I had sat up every evening of his wonderful visit and talked and laughed and he had sung to me the way he used to sing to my stomach when I was carrying Aimez. He sang the song he requested at our faux wedding. It was the song he sang to Aimez all her life. It was the beautiful song he had rocked his grandson to sleep with and it had been the song Aimez told me she had sung to him while she held his dying body.

I was so thankful he hadn't died alone that day. I was so grateful Aimez had been there for him. I was grateful that he was here for me now. I knew how this would happen, as I had demanded the truth from Aimez. The truth was such a beautiful thing to look forward to that she didn't fight against telling me it, she just avoided dates and ages, but the details were all there.

"_Dad will come to you, he'll be an older version, and he'll spend a whole week treating you as if you were a teenager. On the last day he'll fall asleep on your lap while you sit on the swing chair in the garden and you will drift away mum. When I come to Gorecki you have gone and you have a lovely smile on your face and dad is still sleeping in your lap. He never knows that you've gone. I watch the two of you while the sun sets and dad disappears back where he came from. You get to die with him at your side mum. Just like you always wanted."_

Ron steps out into the garden with a cup of tea for me and a bunch of grapes he took from the fruit bowl before turning to go back inside and bring out the sandwiches he has just made for us.

"Ron," I call after him, he turns and raises his eyebrows expectantly, "come sit with me for a while. You've been on your feet all afternoon."

He rolled his eyes but didn't protest as I patted the swing chair beside me insistently and he sat at my side.

"I love you sweetheart," I said as I kissed his smooth cheek with my wrinkled old mouth.

"I love you too beautiful," he says before kissing me back and shifting to lie down on the swing chair and set his head down on my lap.

This is the best day of my life. I will see him soon. We'll be together again for good.

I always knew I could beat time


	39. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_22nd July 2047 (Aimez is 28)_

AIMEZ: I watch the photograph on the mantle and smile to myself. It's mum's favourite post 2024 dad picture. It's from his visit to her fifty-fith birthday party.

Mum had been twirling around the dance floor with Uncle Neville, he's not really my uncle but sort of is as well, and Uncle Harry and Auntie Ginny were each dancing with my cousins Lilly and Sirius while James kept trying to get a decent angle to take a photograph of them when he saw him. He saw his Uncle Ron, my dad, walking through the big double doors to the function rooms we had hired for the party and looking around anxiously.

I saw James freeze and turn his head to check that it wasn't Bobby but he knew, he knew just as well as I did, that it was the only member of the family we hadn't been able to send an invitation to. James and I were the only two people in the crowded room to notice him. What's one more red head in a room full of red heads anyway?

I had only seen dad three weeks before. He had taught me three useful phrases when being apprehended in the nude:

1) Yes officer I would like to borrow your helmet.

2) I'm naked?

3) Hungry badgers ate my undies!

I knew I could grab him and hug him and get him to dance with me and meet my new friend Adam in person for the very first time after he found mum. He needed to find mum and she needed to see him right now more than ever. She had burst into my bedroom in tears that morning holding a birthday card that a travelling dad must have written and given to the post office in Diagon Alley with instructions not to send the owl until the nineteenth of September 2029.

_Happy birthday babe! Save me a dance. Love you anytime, every time, all the time. Ron_

Dad couldn't have been much older than twenty five, none of us ever got around to asking him when he had come from, and he looked so well and strong that I wondered if he was the same young guy who had almost died on our dining room table when he came to us the year before. He didn't often come to us hurt after he died but I still took all the lessons in healing and first aid I could at Hogwarts just in case. Seamus Finnegan induced injuries were still spoken about in our family with shudders and dark looks.

I could see him walking across the dance floor and held my breath in the hope of containing my excitement while several couples passed him by with friendly nods and comments about how uncanny the likeness young Bobby was with his poor dead uncle and how quickly he seemed to have grown. James still held the camera with both hands but had side stepped all the way across to me while not tearing his eyes from the now grinning figure that was almost upon the birthday girl and mumbled something to me that indicated he hadn't thought I'd noticed my father had arrived at the party. I put my hand on his shoulder and let out as quiet a laugh as I could manage while James' stunned face broke into a wide smile.

I saw Uncle Neville freeze and blink before beaming and looking into mum's eyes as she frowned back up at him, wondering why they had stopped dancing and Neville nodded over her shoulder. She turned just as dad was leaning in to whisper into her ear.

"I'm not too late am I?"

I found out from mum later on what he had said to her. Uncle Neville stepped back to nudge Uncle Harry who froze with Lilly and let out a shaky laugh while mum squealed and threw herself intodad's arms. This caused all the dancers around them to stop and stare while Auntie Ginny gasped and was about to run to greet dad but Sirius wisely held onto her and she hugged him tightly instead while tears welled in her eyes.

Dad had spun mum around while she laughed and squealed again and they kissed as he set her back down. James looked away uncomfortably but I love to see them like that, lost in the moment and genuinely happy, it reminds me of when I was a little girl and I would see it every day. They began to dance closely and I saw they were murmuring things into each other's hair, making the other laugh and occasionally pausing to kiss again.

After three songs dad's eyes finally fell upon me and whispered something to mum to make her look at me too. They both grinned and waved at me at the exact moment James took the photograph. The photograph I am staring at with the same giddy smile on my face I had worn that night. When the song ended my parents scampered across the dance floor to grab me and pull me out with them. I protested and turned to plead with James to save me but he was just enjoying watching this too much. Then I caught Adam's eye and he frowned and shrugged as my dad, the strapping young man who had just planted a kiss on his new friend's cheek before tickling her under the chin, twirled me around and began to dance with both of his 'girls' as he called us. Mum actually giggled. My mum's not a giggler but I swear to you she really did it. My mum giggled like a little schoolgirl on her fiftieth birthday.

After our family dance I signalled to mum that I wanted to introduce Adam to dad and she nodded encouragingly and took dad's hand to lead him over to my nervous looking friend.

"Adam mate!" Dad had said as he slammed his hand into Adam's before pulling him forward and slapping him on the back as if they grew up together or something, "Good to see ya again."

"Um...again?" Adam glanced at me with fearful eyes and I realised that this was only their introductory meeting for Adam and not dad.

"Oh sorry, is this...?" dad said as he patted Adam on the back a lot more gently the second time around, "...have we not met yet?"

Adam shook his head and then laughed suddenly, he does that at inappropriate times and I quite like it, before clamping his hand over his mouth in embarrassment.

"Don't worry mate, I like you," dad grinned and Adam visibly relaxed.

On seeing the dancing and smooching had stopped for the time being dad was swamped by the whole family but he didn't let go of mum for a minute of it. The two of them had to give Auntie Ginny a cuddle when she eventually burst into tears and soon Uncle Harry prized her away and mum and dad disappeared back home without a word. Dad had stayed with her until dawn the following morning.

There are letters and photographs and pressed flowers all over the place in my flat, tokens and reminders of visits. Dad once came to the cottage while mum was asleep and he somehow knew that he'd not be able to stay until she woke up in the morning so he borrowed her wand and filled every room of the cottage with twinkling white lights and blue irises before making her breakfast and writing her a little note that simply said.

_Good morning sunshine, from the angel at your table._

It's strange to think that I seen dad so regularly while mum's visits took some time to even begin. She waited so long for him to come to her after he died that she doubted that he ever would. Then he went through a stage where every time he tried to see her or meet up with her he would be dragged away before she could get to him in time. Then he started to come as if there was a pheromone mum gave off whenever she was missing him more than the usual dull ache that would drag him through time to join her. The older mum gets the more time they seem to get to spend together.

Mum and dad beam at me from the photograph again before dancing on and I look at the diary dad gave me for my twenty-first birthday. He was only a few weeks away from his forty-fourth birthday when he handed it to me and mumbled something about it having as many dates as he could remember in it. I flick through it and my heart swells. Every visit I could expect from him was handwritten in his messy scrawl. So many visits, too many to ever count and covering so many decades, and there will be more besides as he has turned up unexpectedly no less than fifteen times already since I got the diary.

I look down at today's date.

_Sometime in the afternoon. Your flat. I'll be there for three hours. Get the tea on and don't give me those manky biscuits you've got in the cupboard, they're revolting!_

"They're not manky!" I chuckle to myself as I read the entry for the forth time in the past hour.

"Aim they are disgusting and I am not eating them."

I jump and look to the open door where my dad is pulling on one of Adam's shirts with that mischievous grin on his face.

"I got you some chocolate digestives especially," I scowl before breaking into a smile.

"That's my girl!"

**End**

_A/N Okay, let's get right to it shall we?_

_Thanks and one of Ron's chocolate digestive biscuits each to all the following wonderful reviewers:_

_Scribhneoir - Look I spelled your name! Eternal thanks as ever for all the encouragement._

_Roodle - You stalk my fics like a big stalky thing._

_C.Fireball - The greatest reviewer in the history of reviewers. Chapter by chapter, blow by blow, and had a better grip on the timelines than even I did!_

_Magnolia Lane - Reviews and medical advice, you gotta love that woman._

_NCC Jellybean – The 'Git' series will continue and never fear, I continue to use Brit slang without realising. (By the way, before you ask manky is just a general kind of grossness. E.g. If I don't wash my hair for three days it's gets all manky)_

_Baka No Katsu - You get TWO chocolate biscuits!_

_Lucid-03-days - Ooh I've got a new person to thank...I'm making new friends while torturing redheads!_

_diesel writer - Another new friend! Flattering reviews too, I like you._

_rupertlovesme - I wrote this to make you cry...MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!_

_JK Williams - You are another one who gets two biscuits!_

_Latanya Kassidy - Always so enthusiastic._

_Jedi Pabst - You seem to review before I've even finished uploading the documents, I'm scared!_

_Mist - You're another one! You are also my best anonymous reviewer, you say nice things and then disappear into the ether. Is it nice in the ether? _

_Reader 1148 - Brief reviews but always encouraging. Have a biscuit!_

_marie fay - So many new people and you're another one! I know you begged me not to kill him and I'm sorry. I hope I'm forgiven. (Kneels and presents platter of chocolate digestives to marie with head bowed)_

_Harry Lvr - Oh my loyal old buddy! Always good to impress you, hope I did with this._

_Dansgirl34 - I MUST TRY TO WRITE YOU A HARRY FIC!_

_Foxie xox, Persian muggle, mers, Avanell, Quatto - Lots of love and biscuits for all!_

_And a Jaffa cake for anybody I might have forgotten!_

_Well all this talk of chocolate digestives has just made me want to go out and buy a packet!_

_So as I always ask of you in my end of fic note, an overview of the fic as a whole is much appreciated. Especially for this one as I know how tough you all found it at the start. Did I pull off the whole disjointed narrative? If you could tell me your opinion on the origional characters too I'd appriciate it, I don't think I've ever had so many in one fic before...I hope it wasn't overkill._

_I've also never killed Ron before and would like to know what you think about that too._

_I'm taking a break to be kind to my eyes and get over my flu. I will keep posting the 'Git' series sporadically, there are six more planned so keep a look out for them, and you know me and my out of the blue one-shots don't you? I'm sure I'll do a couple of hit and runs. I might do something in the Lost for Words universe._

_Right now I'm thinking of stepping back from the novel length fics, I've done four now and I don't want to go stale on you guys._

_So that's it and I leave you with a warning: DO NOT ATTEMPT A TIME TRAVEL FIC WITHOUT A LOT OF PAPERWORK AND PRE-PLANNED TIMELINES BEFOREHAND! (This was tough!)_

_Love kisses and biscuits for all, me and my flu are off to infect fifty children at my theatre company now!_

_Shari_


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